landlord's insurnce company suing me

[theseeker_333]

Hi. i live in Auburn New York. I am currnetly rentin giwth my boy friend a two bedroom upstairs apartment. I was at home one day an di forgot that I had tuned the sink on to do dishes with. What resulted when I turned tha water off was that about two sink fulls had drained down in to the apartment below which happens to be our landlords realestate office. seh called soem wokers from a local company to come dry out the apartment and thier supervisor of the group told both us na dour landlord that their was a lot of provious damage from the incident. the next day tha landlord stoped me and asked that we get together the next day to discuss her $1,000 deductabel. I told her that we would be home all day and that she could call on us any time. a week went bye with no word untill by boyfriend called her up and asked when she wanted to get together. She got all defffensive on the phone and gave it to her husband who hung up.... the next week her insurance company came and took pictures of all the damages.. which consisted of her office and our kitchen. we wnet three weeks without hearign any thing sence then untill last week when we got a letter in the mail from her insurance company telling us that we owe them $7,000 in damages. and that her deductable was only $100. I relize and have no problem payign for the company that came to dry the office and our apartment out . but she is clamign that seh spent $1,300 to have a table and six chairs refinished and reapolstered. She never once showed us teh damages in her office and there is not way that teh water that i spilled could have done that much damage to her tanble and chairs. Also there was, when we pulled teh stove out, holes and mold from previouse problems with the sink leaking and there is a about a half inch of space between the sink and the couter top on the back half of the sink. seh also claimes that we pu a whole in her sealing. which for that amount of water that leaked could not have been possible. The insurance company put everything in my boyfreinds name eventhough I am the one who was involved. he was no way near the premises when it happend. also this is not the only thing wrong with the apartment, there is water stains on the sealing and walls of our bedroom and as of a week and a half ago we avae only 5 out of aour 26 available electrical socets working. wich means that our fridge right now is on an extension cord . we called code inforcement because she has yet to do anything about the electrical probelm even though we called her three seprate times the first week we had the problem. We are both college students and we need our computers do do our work I am currently writing this only only computer in the coolege i could find a vailabel and i havde to wait and hour for it.
Please if any one can help us write back or email me or my boy friend at: [email protected]

Bobby

 

[longneck]

first, if damage is caused and the LL puts in an insurance claim, then the insurance will correct the problem and try to collect the cost of the damages from whoever caused the damages. this is called "subrogation". you caused the damage, and will have to pay for it.

second, the insurance is going after your boyfriend because his name is on the lease and he is therefore responsible for the actions of his guests.

as for the outlets, you need to make requests to have the outlets fxied in writing. have you done that in writing?

 

[theseeker_333]

ok.. but the only damages we caused was that she needed to bring in a company to dry the place out. We do not have a written lease and, the verbal lease is for both my Boyfriend and me (under both our names).

 

[longneck]

your original post is very confusing. it sounds like the insurance company in strying to subrogate $7000 from you, and the LL is charging you $1300 for repairing the tables and chairs, right?

what, exactly, is the problem with this? it is very reasonable that an overflowing sink could cause that much damage.

at this point you should probably demand from the insurance company an itemization of the costs and go from there. you'll never win this argument just by saying "it's too high". you have to back it up with specifics.