Do this first
- Electrics before water. If water is near a light fitting, a downlight or a socket, switch that circuit off at your consumer unit and leave it off. Do not test a fitting by switching it on.
- Knock on the door above. Ask them to close their stopcock and switch their boiler off, and ask them to stop using the bathroom until someone has looked. Most of these are resolved in the first ten minutes by a neighbour turning something off.
- If nobody answers, contact the managing agent or freeholder, not a locksmith. Agents hold emergency access arrangements and you do not have a right of entry.
- Protect and record. Move belongings, put buckets down, and photograph everything with timestamps before you mop. Take a short video of water actually arriving. That single clip does more for a claim than any amount of description.
- Take the weight out of a bulging ceiling only under the conditions set out on our page for water coming through a ceiling: modern plasterboard, circuit isolated, bucket underneath, stand to one side, one pierce at the lowest point. Not on lath and plaster, not on a pre-2000 textured coating, not while water is still pouring in.
- Report it in writing the same day to the agent or freeholder and to your own insurer, even if you have not decided whether to claim.
Where it is coming from, and why that decides who pays
Three questions settle nearly every flat-above leak: what is leaking, whether it sits inside their demise or in common parts, and whether anyone was negligent. Access, liability and the excess sit with different people, and documenting the source first is what stops the argument.
| Behaviour | Likely source upstairs | Usually whose |
|---|---|---|
| Only while their shower or bath runs | Tray, seal, waste or overflow | The upstairs leaseholder |
| Constant, day and night | A pressurised supply or heating pipe within their flat | The upstairs leaseholder |
| Constant, and their stopcock being closed makes no difference | A riser, communal main or heating distribution pipe in the structure | The freeholder or block management |
| Only when an upstairs WC or washing machine drains | Waste branch or the soil stack | Branch is theirs, the stack is usually communal |
| After heavy rain, top floor only | Roof, parapet or rainwater goods | The freeholder |
The point most people get wrong: a neighbour is not automatically liable simply because the water came from their flat. In practice a claim turns on whether they were negligent, for example ignoring a known drip, and otherwise each party normally claims on their own policy. Buildings cover for the block is usually arranged by the freeholder, while your fixtures and contents are yours. Arguing about fault before anyone has established the source wastes the only window in which the evidence still exists.
What the repair involves
We attend the flat that is wet and, with permission, the flat above, and establish the source with moisture mapping, thermal imaging and acoustic testing, isolating circuits one at a time so the result is attributable rather than a guess. What comes out of that is a written leak detection report naming the source, the evidence for it and what had to be opened to reach it. That is the document a loss adjuster asks for, and it is what turns a neighbour dispute into an insurance matter.
After that, the repair upstairs and the reinstatement downstairs are two different jobs and we do both: pipework or seal repaired at source, then ceiling cut back to sound board, dried, reboarded, skimmed and redecorated, floors and cornice made good where they have been disturbed. That is trace and access reinstatement, and our insurance claims hub covers what the report needs to contain.
When it is not us
- They already know what it is. If the neighbour says the shower seal failed and it stops when they stop using it, they need a bathroom repair, not a detection visit.
- The source is in common parts. A riser, a communal heating pipe, the roof or the stack is block management's to instruct. You can and should report it in writing; you cannot commission work on it.
- They refuse access. That is a matter for the freeholder or agent under the terms of the lease, not something to force. Keep every request in writing.
- Either of you is a tenant. The landlord is responsible for keeping the water and sanitation installations in repair, so the instruction has to come from them.
- Your insurer has appointed their own contractor. Let them run it. Instructing separately can prejudice the claim.
- The claim has been declined and you disagree. Complain to the insurer first, then take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service if the answer does not satisfy you.