Hi,

We have an old Spanish townhouse which has buildings and contents insurance arranged by the bank where the mortgage is held.  The house was purchase in September 2004 and we moved straight in and have never had a problem until November 2006 when there was torrential rain and the roof began to leak.

We put in an insurance claim but it was denied because ‘the roof wasn’t maintained’ - ?  How does anyone know their roof needs maintaining until there’s a problem?  (The roof isn’t visible from outside).  The lawyer that dealt with our house purchase, 2 years previously, tried dealing with the insurance company and after a year managed to get us 600 euros which they said was the cost of re-decorating.  They were adamant that they wouldn’t pay for the roof despite the fact we had full buildings insurance.

Obviously, we had the roof repaired where it was leaking.  Last September there was a hail storm here with hailstones the size of golf balls and we were relieved when the roof repair held up and didn’t leak.  However, we went back to England for Christmas/New Year 2007 and received a phone call from our neighbour to say that part of the front of our roof had collapsed into the street and the firebrigade and police had come to clear it up and make it safe.

We immediately faxed a claim to the insurance company (the policy had been renewed in September 2007) and arranged for their assessor to meet our neighbour, at the house, while we were still in England.  On our return we received a letter to say that the roof isn’t insured so they won’t pay for a new one - a repair is most definitely out of the question.  They also won’t pay for any internal damage or the contents damage.  What exactly did we pay insurance for?!

We’ve spoken to a lawyer who said it will cost us around 5000 euros to persue through the court and take up to 2 years.  We have 3 children, at school here, and luckily had an empty apartment we could move into.  Our children are settled here, our business is here and our home was here (until the roof collapsed) so staying in England until it was all sorted, just wasn’t an option.

We’ve been quoted around 20,000 euros just for the new roof and now the bedroom floors, in 2 of the bedrooms, need replacing where it has continued raining on and off and the weight of the roof tiles falling has damaged them.  The whole downstairs also has water marks where the rain was just running down the walls.  Basically, it’s a complete mess and we just don’t have the kind of money we need to repair it.  We also can’t afford to pay a lawyer 5000 euros and wait up to 2 years to see if we can get the insurance company to pay or not.

Is there anything else we can do?  Is there any regulatory body we can try?  The townhall aren’t interested.  A local architect has assessed the damage and says we have a good case against the insurance company because he has all the weather reports for the September hail and the December rain storms.  He says 2 other houses in our street had their roofs brought down in the September hail and the fact that ours stayed up shows it was in a good state of repair at the time.

We’re still paying the mortgage on the house but aren’t living in it and it’s just getting worse and worse as we’re still getting periodic rainfall.

Can anyone help or advise please?

Many thanks
Maya