QLD Urine damage bamboo flooring and underlay, not malicious damage or vandalism?

I have just had tenants who it appears their life fell apart, with the woman running interstate claiming domestic violence and the male apparently heading off to live on the street. This was after 2.5 years of reasonable tenancy, with the end now leaving my property in a bad way... during the last few weeks they damaged most of the doors, for example after damaging locks "installing" bolts by putting a piece of wood (off cuts of my flooring) on one side of the door and drilling through the door to mount the bolt, similar ingenuity saw the installation of a dart board in the sunroom.

Some of the damage they did is covered as "Malicious or vandalism" and I will be able to get most things corrected at limited out of pocket expense after the excess is paid and the great piles of rubbish are removed.

In one bedroom however they appear to have urinated on the floor, once or numerous times, resulting in the brand new bamboo flooring staining and the stench cannot be removed without getting to the underlay. They had a cat there without notifying me through the PM, and a dog that I was aware of, however the PM is fairly sure it is human not pet urine and it covers the entire width of the floor. The insurance company say it is not covered and I do not have accidental damage in my policy. I have attached a picture of the flooring discoloration.

Does this sound correct? i.e. that leaving urine on the floor would be considered accidental damage.

Justin

 

...how...?

 

I guess due to the volume and dimensions. Apparently one of the children were in there, I guess the question is the same either way... the urine covers a large area and must have been left for a significant period of time, it represents one or many events, surely it cannot be considered accidental nor fair wear and tear?

 

Hey,

Yes unfortunately this is the way insurance companies get out of alot of damages. In my 10 years experience it is extremely frustrating. Unless is is maliciously done by the tenant on purpose to damage your property it is considered "accidental"

I have had this argument with RAC landlords insurance before who tried to get away with saying that a holes in doors and broken windows could not be claimed as i could not prove that the tenant purposely did the damages to the property and they didn't end up there by accident.

Very frustrating but make sure you fight for what you believe to be correct and take it further if needed. This is something you property manager should be doing for you (if you have one)

Ella

 

Sounds like accidental damage to me, presuming that they didn't urinate on the floor as some kind of protest (which seems unlikely). Presumably a kid "had an accident".

 

The agent was taking the p!55.

Could well have been an accident or intentional if someone was locked in the room.

 

Which insurer were you with?

 

How did the tenancy end; break-lease, abscond, termination by lessor/agent?

 

Get a new policy stat.

Could it be claimed as malicious, if say there was locks on the door and it could be assessed that an animal was left in there purposefully?

 

At least it’s only in one section - easy just replace a few boards and a section of underlay.

 

They stopped paying rent, they were already behind and eventually I decided I could not risk any longer so took them to qcat and evicted them and they were 6 weeks behind when they left. The policy covers 18 weeks less the agents fee and bond (so really 14 weeks less the agents fee). The damage to the property was only in the last month or so.

 

I will wait until things are finalised to name the insurer I think, don't want any issues with it and everything is still underway. I have put in a complaint regarding them not covering the damage to the flooring so we will see how it goes.

 

It is never that easy, the supplier (bunnings) no longer sells the product nor deals directly with the company so I am talking to them to see how I might get some more. I kept a small amount in reserve but not enough to cover this. It was a gloss bamboo flooring, looks great and was the top end of their pricing at the time, and I had thought that it would be easy to replace as it came through bunnings with a life time warranty (or 30years or similar), but not sure what happens now that they no longer supply it (it was installed in early 2016).

 

Only as good as the paper the warranty is written on - ask fair trading whether you have any recourse back through bunnies.

 

Even then it normally covers failure of the product as opposed to any "damage".

Keep pushing them on it anything a bit out of the ordinary they will always say no as a default position.

- Luke

 

I don’t think the OP is trying to get Bunnings to admit fault - just to make contact with the manufacturer to purchase some replacement planks...

 

It wouldn't be a warranty claim but if there was, where'd you go to claim?

 

To the place I purchased the planks - Bunnings in this case.

 

.....multiple times

 

I hear you, it's super annoying. But yeah, a kid who's not toilet trained doesn't get toilet trained after one accident. Should they have taken measures like putting down something waterproof? That would have been considerate. But happening multiple times doesn't make it "not an accident".