neighbors water pipe break

[gabster54]

SC. I recently bought a townhouse and rented it out. The next door neighbors house pipe burst and damaged my house. It was not extensive. it was under $1000. But the problem is the homeowner of that house only has insurance that will cover his house and not anything (liability) else. When i talked with him, he admitted that this has happened before because the pipes in these townhomes were polybutylane pipes. My insurance has a $1000 deductible so it is not worth getting smacked with higher insurance rates by filing for this and not even being reimbursed one iota. i had thought about subroagation, but I have talked with my insurance company and they inform me that they can not get the money back through subrogation as SC has a "no fault" law and that it would be impossible to determine whether the other person was negligent. I am thinking of filing a small claims against the homeowner for the amount that i am out, but this homeowner says that his insurance company told him since he was not negligent the courts won't find against him. i have asked him to pay at least part of what i have paid out, but he is not interested. i guess i am just looking for any advice on what to do. i feel like it would be a lost cause to file in court. i would just be throwing good money after bad. it is frustrating that through no fault of my own i am paying out this amount of money and seemingly have no avenue to get reimbursed. any advice out there? thanks

 

[xylene]

any advice out there? thanks

Why are you taking legal advice from your adversary?

Water from his property damaged your property. Homeowner claiming to not have 'liability insurance' doesn't make him not responsible.

 

[HRZ]

How many times did he have prior problems with Poly pipe?

There is a bit of history on high failure rate of these pipes ...but unless you can show he was negligent not to replace a known defective lumping line ...a mere accidental break is not going to be a winning card ...

Did you replace your poly lines....?

 

[justalayman]

Why are you taking legal advice from your adversary?

Water from his property damaged your property. Homeowner claiming to not have 'liability insurance' doesn't make him not responsible.

No but unless there is negligence on the part of the neighbor, they are not liable for the damages.

 

[justalayman]

SC. I recently bought a townhouse and rented it out. The next door neighbors house pipe burst and damaged my house. It was not extensive. it was under $1000. But the problem is the homeowner of that house only has insurance that will cover his house and not anything (liability) else. When i talked with him, he admitted that this has happened before because the pipes in these townhomes were polybutylane pipes. My insurance has a $1000 deductible so it is not worth getting smacked with higher insurance rates by filing for this and not even being reimbursed one iota. i had thought about subroagation, but I have talked with my insurance company and they inform me that they can not get the money back through subrogation as SC has a "no fault" law and that it would be impossible to determine whether the other person was negligent. I am thinking of filing a small claims against the homeowner for the amount that i am out, but this homeowner says that his insurance company told him since he was not negligent the courts won't find against him. i have asked him to pay at least part of what i have paid out, but he is not interested. i guess i am just looking for any advice on what to do. i feel like it would be a lost cause to file in court. i would just be throwing good money after bad. it is frustrating that through no fault of my own i am paying out this amount of money and seemingly have no avenue to get reimbursed. any advice out there? thanks

For a party to be liable there must be negligence. Unless you can show how this neighbor was negligent and that negligence is the proximate cause of your damages, you cannot win in court.


Was this during a below freezing period or was it simply out of the blue?

While you are upset you probably have to pay for this out of no fault of yours, as it stands, you are expecting the neighbor to pay when you have not shown it to be their fault either. Is that any more fair?

 

[xylene]

neighbor admits a history of leaks.

this isn't an act of god, like a spring erupted under the foundation.
His cruddy failure prone plumbing caused damage.

The op does not need to have replaced his own possibly defect plumbing.
That's not how comparative negligence works.

 

[justalayman]

neighbor admits a history of leaks.

this isn't an act of god, like a spring erupted under the foundation.
His cruddy failure prone plumbing caused damage.

The op does not need to have replaced his own possibly defect plumbing.
That's not how comparative negligence works.

The admission of leaks isn’t enough to prove negligence. At best it suggests further research but without knowing precisely what ruptured and what was the exact cause of the leaks prior and what recommendations neighbor recieved from plumber...

It goes on and on.

Plaintiff must prove negligence and so far he hasn’t done that.

and I said nothing of comparative negligence.

I said nothing about the ops plumbing at all.

 

[quincy]

Here is a link to South Carolina's negligence standard of fault: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t15c038.php

 

[gabster54]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I appreciate all the responses.