This article contains the long and arduous process of fixing the water leak caused by the upstairs tenant of my apartment complex. In a nutshell, a hole in the hot water pipe in the floor above my apartment room caused water damage to a portion of my room’s interior in addition to a few personal items. A claim was filed and covered by the management company’s corporate insurance which included compensation for personal item damage (and hotel accomodation during water repairs). As I was 0% at fault there was no cost to me out-of-pocket.
Table of Contents
Situation
Below is a roughly visualized grouping of all stakeholders involved in this incident:
- A : Myself, the claimant who will file a claim against the management company (E) for damages and compensation.
- B : My company with which the lease is contracted to (法人契約). In other words, I participate in “company housing”.
- C : The mandatory fire insurance coverage I signed upon leasing this property.
- D : Management company’s 24/7 support center.
- E : Management company. Legally responsible for reducing rent (or equivalent exchange) under Civil Law 611.
- F : Corporate insurance of the management company (D). Compensates me (A) for personal property damage and accommodation during the repairs. Insures management company (D) for the necessary water leak repairs to the property.
- G : Water pipe maintenance dispatched by management company (D) to fix water leak.
- H : Inspection dispatched by management company (D) to assess property damage.
Background
- My apartment is 1DK and approximately 39 square meters.
- The lease is not contracted to me, but to my company, thus a 法人契約.
- Although the leak came from the upper floor tenant, they were not liable as the damages came due to an issue with the building’s water infrastructure.
- I have fire insurance (火災保険) which actually covers many non-fire-related incidents, including the water leak in this article.
Compensation
Since I was 0% at fault for this incident the apartment management company paid for all the repairs, including switching out the wallpaper/flooring/cabinets for new ones. There were several other costs and damages incurred which I will categorize into two items: personal item damages and others.
First, due to the water leakage several of my appliances suffered some damage. This included the Google Nest Hub which I placed on my kitchen countertop, and the microwave oven which is placed above my refridgerator. Water got into the wall plug where I had my Nest Hub plugged in, essentially shorting and breaking it. As for the microwave, while it still functions, water got inside of the electronic circuitry which can result in decreased performance. For these two appliances I was given 10,000JPY and 30,000JPY, respectively, with the logic that replacing these would cost roughly those amounts.
The remaining compensation is non-physical and comprises of the following: “apology money”, and accommodation compensation. The apology money of 30,000JPY was the amount given to me while I was inconvenienced as a result of this water leak. I want to note here that the original amount proposed to me was 20,000JPY but I was able to negotiate for a higher amount – my argument was that the costs for purchasing groceries and cooking by myself over two months would be 500JPY/day x 60 days = 30,000JPY. While this amount may sound small to many people, I had a feeling that they wouldn’t accept to pay me for any higher amount and I just wanted to have this issue resolved ASAP.
Next was the accommodation reimbursement, which the management company agreed to pay 8000JPY per day of repairs. As repairs spanned over 5 days (not counting the weekends when repairs were paused), this amounts comes out to be a total of 40,000JPY. While unfortunately hotel costs went over this amount, the remaining (~50000JPY) could be reimbursed by my personal fire insurance policy, meaning I essentially pay nothing out-of-pocket for staying at hotels which the repairs were underway.
In total, 110,000JPY was reimbursed to me by the management company as a result of this incident. Separately, _____JPY was reimbursed by my personal fire insurance policy.
Timeline
| Total # days | Date | Description | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2022-10-11, ~20:00 | First sign of water leak | Call rental apartment support desk to report water leak. |
| 3 | 2022-10-14 | Leak assessment | Water maintenance company arrives to assess leakage. Confirms hole in hot water pipe from above floor. Make temporary fix to minimize damage until actual repairs can be done. |
| 6 | 2022-10-17 | Temporary fix to room | Water leakage spreads to entire kitchen cupboard. Also water leaking from ceiling of corridor (玄関) area. Same water maintenance company comes to install vinyl bags to funnel water leaking from cupboard to the sink. Receive water-absorbing sheets for corridor leak. |
| 9 | 2022-10-20 | Fix to upper floor water leak | Water leak fixed from upper floor. Damage assessment to apartment needs to wait until remaining water has finished leaking. |
| 13 | 2022-10-24 | Water damage inspection | Inspection came to assess water damage. In short: 1) ceiling wallpaper replacement for living room, corridor (玄関), and utility room’s (脱衣所) 2) Full replacement of kitchen cupboards 3) Full replacement of corridor (玄関) flooring 4) Wooden board replacement for corridor (玄関)’s storage space 5) Replacement for molded wooden scaffolding (壁クロス) above ceiling |
| 23 | 2022-11-03 | Room damage report | Received draft of room damage report from apartment management company. There is not sufficient details on it for the document to have any value. |
| 36 | 2022-11-16 | Scheduling for room repairs | Gave the repair company a list of dates which I am available for them to come and repair my room (Repairs must be done while I am present). |
| 37 | 2022-11-17 | Updated room damage report | Received the updated room damage report. Includes which parts of the room needs repairs with visuals. This report will be used as evidence when claiming compensation from my fire insurance. |
| 38 | 2022-11-18 | Flooring sample taken by repair company | Repair company came to collect sample of flooring so that color/material can be prepared by flooring company. |
| 46 | 2022-11-26 | Repair materials ordered and finalized | Received message from repair company that room repair materials have been ordered. |
| 49 | 2022-11-29 | Repair dates finalized | Room repair dates finalized (12/8 ~ 12/14). No work will be done on the weekends. |
| 55 | 2022-12-05 | Contact personal fire insurance + management company + complaint | 1) Called fire insurance company to discuss temporary lodging allowance. Fire insurance is surprised that management company insurance does not provide lodging allowance. 2) I called management company to discuss claiming personal + lodging costs. 3) Got fed up with management company and filed formal complaint. |
| 58 | 2022-12-08 | First day of room repairs | |
| 63 | 2022-12-13 | Last day of room repairs | |
| 120 | 2023-02-08 | Reimbursement Details Finalized | See “Compensation” section above for details. |
| 121 | 2023-02-09 | Submitted documents to Personal Fire Insurance | |
| 140 | 2023-03-01 | Receive reimbursement from Personal Fire Insurance | |
| 154 | 2023-03-15 | Receive reimbursement from management company | Needed to remind the management company to process the bank transfer payment….. |
5 Must-Do Items
Understand your rights as a renter
First, check some materials on renter’s rights and basic agreements that are made between the owner and the renter. Here’s a good English guide to get started. If incidents occur regardless of whether the fault if your’s or not, contact your personal property (most likely fire but may also contain others like earthquake, etc) insurance company anyway. Depending on the situation you may be able to use your personal insurance to either get money back or pay less in liability damages.
If the damages get to a point where it’s impossible for the property to provide a reasonable level of living condition, then you may be able to threaten your property owner to reduce your rent as pursuant of the Amended Civil Code 611.
Lastly, be careful when you decide to move out of the property and the inspectors mark the areas fixed as needing replacement. It’s possible that the repairs done for the incident was shoddy and that there are still some issues in some hidden areas. If you feel that the inspection was conducted unfairly, show evidence that repairs have been done on these areas and that any damages were a result of daily wear-and-tear (which by law cannot be deducted from your deposit).
Push and complain to the management company often
Honestly, the old man who was in charge of my case was probably coasting through the rest of his employment years until retirement. Throughout this entire incident I had to constantly call and ask for updates and remind him to do his own job. It was the worst customer service experience I ever had to witness and I would file a 1/10 feedback to the management company if there is an option to do so.
While I had a terrible experience with this particular management company, in general it’s always a good idea to call and complain to them as often as you can or else they will just proceed with the minimum amount they can get away with. Complaining to them often helps to communicate the urgency in your incident and speed up the process, and you may even get a higher amount of compensation as a result (see “Compensation” section above where I got an extra 10000JPY just for negotiating with them).
Take and request evidence of EVERYTHING
Take pictures and videos of the entire incident as it unfolds, and record conversations between all the involved parties. In this case my personal fire insurance company was very helpful and cooperative in getting money from the management company, but it’s possible that relevant parties do not honor the agreements made during phone call, in which having a recording of the conversation can be very helpful (Aside: you are allowed to record conversations without the other party’s consent as long as you don’t broadcast it to a wider audience). Obviously having a written letter of the negotiation agreements mailed to you is highly recommended to avoid confusion – while management companies may not deal with email communication, they normally send you letters to confirm details regarding the incident.
Summary
This entire ordeal took 5 months from start until receiving my compensation. The process may have taken slightly longer than necessary due to end of year/beginning of year holidays, but a lot of the holdup was due to the management company not taking my case seriously. I’m also glad that I was able to use my personal fire insurance and felt that the premiums I had to pay for more than four years finally paid off. Nevertheless, I was fully compensated for my troubles though I hope to never have to go through this kind of situation again…!