Help needed for friends

[elcarretero]

We have some elderly (early 80s) friends who own an apartment on the 4th floor of a 5-floor block in Torrevieja town. They and their family visit several times a year.
Their son and his family came out for a holiday after the gota fria around Eastertime and found the water and electricity off, some of the kitchen cupboards and worktops had warped, there was black mould everywhere including inside the wardrobes. The apartment was uninhabitable so the family had to move elsewhere.
The apartment owners contacted their insurance company who said that there was no obvious way that their pipes could have been leaking and they would need to contact the owners of the flat above as it was likely that the water had come from the upstairs apartment. The apartment above is owned by an absentee landlord and is used as a commercial holiday let. When our friends finally got access to the apartment above them it did not appear that any water had come from that apartment so the inference was that water entered their apartment somehow through the structure of the building.
Their insurance company, Mapfre, say that they can put it all right but unless they get assurances that something is done to stop it happening again they will not authorise the work. They want the apartments community insurance to either share the costs or fix whatever the problem is.
Basically it’s stalemate. Our friends can’t get anything done, theirs and our Spanish isn’t up to dealing with insurance assessors whose level of English miraculously declines when asked awkward questions. Our friends are coming out here periodically and trying to get things moving without success and having to pay for alternative accommodation as well. As you can imagine they are extremely stressed by all this.
Has anyone any ideas as to how this can be progressed or who might be able to help them please?

[Bee]

My advice is get hold of a structural engineer and he/she will be able to pinpoint the problem for you. It could well be an ingress of water through the facade of the building or between your ceiling and the floor above. There appears to be a build-up of condensation and damp caused by poor or non-existent ventilation and insulation. Once you have the report that will satisfy your insurance co. Be prepared for taking down ceilings.

Bee