How to handle Loss Adjuster visit after neighbouring flat fire.
Hello there!
The usual preamble - long time reader, first time poster - and apologies if this is the wrong forum.
Background
I live in a flat in England. The unit below had a private rented tenant who is a pyromaniac. Despite countless calls to fire, police, council environmental health, council safeguarding, council antisocial behaviour, landlord, nothing was ever done about the guy. He finally burnt the flat out completely - fire brigade deemed it uninhabitable. It's boarded up.
Summary of Damage
My floors were covered with an oily sooty smokey residue. I spent a week scrubbing (sponge and dish soap + paper towel to lift it all up, 1 sq.m at a time) and daily mopping ever since. There is still black dust on the floor by the end of every day. There is also charring of some carpeting in a closet, and the white baseboards you can definitely see soot stain from where it leaked into my flat. The white plastic window frames (I want to say uPVC?) were totally brown. I got those cleaned up and they look great, and the floors look clean too. Internet tells me that even after cleaning, the soot still sits there and eats away at the surfaces - the laminate flooring has mdf core so it will have absorbed the smoke and soot and gasses.
Main question: I want new floors. How do I handle a Loss Adjuster visit / ensure success?
I am getting mixed info. Freeholder's agent said wait for them and they'll be very helpful. Internet says that since they work for the insurance company, their job is to minimise payout.
- Despite floors and windows being cleaned, are they still ruined? // is it reasonable of me to expect new floors?
- is adjuster going to say "these floors look great! nice work! you don't have a claim."
- Smoke+soot+smell have saturated the void between the burnt out flat and mine, and my sub floors. Timber joist construction. It'll have been 3 weeks post- fire before the adjuster will have showed up, meanwhile the place downstairs is boarded up, dark, wet from the fire hose, and smelling.
- Any other likely damage or expenses on the horizon that I haven't thought of?
- Do I need to be prepared to fight my corner? or is this visit more of a rubber stamp to say the damage happened.
- 1960s building, possible asbestos - anything to worry about there?
- Nobody told me whether or not I should stay or go, so I stayed in my place this whole time - neighbours and friends have been saying that this was probably unhealthy/dangerous. Is there anything I should be looking into on this front?
- Should I have gotten quotes for remedial work / should I get them?
- Should I hire my own loss assessor?
- If they make me an offer and I accept, what if I discover more damage / more cost down the line?
- Will they insist on their own contractors or just pay out for me to do it?
- Will they try to stall the process so I cave and accept a bad deal? how can I keep things moving along?
Do I have any recourse other than buildings insurance?
- I don't have contents insurance.
- the AST tenant below definitely is broke and has no insurance of his own - do I have any recourse against landlord (leaseholder below), council, building managers, freeholders, anyone? Because the loss was foreseeable and I had been reporting this for months?