If you rent a flat, the landlord is responsible to ensure that you’re not injured through negligence. This means that if you’re injured because something was wrong or defective in the flat, you may have a claim if the landlord was responsible.
For example:
- Slips due to an unrepaired leak
- Trip on an unrepaired defect – such as a raised flooring tile
- Hit by a falling fixture that was dangerous
- Electric shocks from poorly maintained electrical goods or sockets
Landlords should have specialist insurance that will cover a tenant if they’re injured through the negligence of the landlord. But to make a successful claim for personal injury compensation, the landlord must have breached the duty of care they have for you.
The most common way you can win a claim is if a landlord fails to act on something you have reported. If you have reported a leak and the landlord does nothing about it, and six weeks later you slip, we’d argue that the landlord has notice of an issue and has failed to act on it. If you didn’t report the leak, the insurers will likely defend the claim based on them having no prior knowledge of a hazard. However, if there is a history of a problem that hasn’t been dealt with properly, this could be an argument in your favour as well.
The concept of prior knowledge is often key – whether a claim can win or not is largely dependent on what knowledge of a risk the landlord had or ought to have had. When it comes to poorly maintained premises or electrical goods that aren’t PAT tested, our argument would be more of their failure to maintain and inspect properly.
It’s always best to report problems by phone and email as that way you have a good record that an issue has been reported and then not dealt with, if that’s the case.
So what should you do if you have been injured and you think your landlord is at fault? Here are the key facts about making a claim for personal injury compensation:
For help and advice, call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75.
