Flood damage: a penny for your thoughts

[Sara C.]

Would love any ideas on how to handle flood damage. 

What happened:

Tenants moved in at the beginning of May, brought their own washer/dryer and had a Lowe's contractor install it. The contractor hooked up the drain line incorrectly and for the past 4 months, the washer has been draining into a wall cavity and crawlspace. This was discovered last Thursday when they had a small flood in the laundry room. I had a flood remediation company out yesterday and they found damage in the crawl and water beneath the kitchen tile (shares a wall with the laundry room), the laundry room itself including drywall and a den adjacent to it. The tenants have been complaining of humidity so it's all making sense now. It's going to be a huge project to repair and tenants will likely need to move out while the work is being done. 

My question: do you think this is worth pursuing with Lowe's? Otherwise, I'm going to be taking out an insurance claim. My tenant is reasonable and understands their responsibility in this, but the repair cost will be too high to expect them to contribute significantly. 

[Mike Cumbie]

Ouch!

One thing about Lowe's is that they take their customer satisfaction very seriously. Sending over contractors to make it right is one thing, asking them to pay for you to have someone else repair it is another. It sounds like your tenant is willing to work with you at this point. Since they are the Lowe's customer it would most likely be best if they called. Once the ball gets rolling, they can hand it off to you, but since you didn't pay for the job that caused the issue, Lowe's would be right to say "sorry you never did business with us on this, how can we even consider talking to you much less spending any time or money". 

They may say "Sorry our liability is limited to cost of install" or some such. But they also do take issues seriously.

Good Luck!