Definition of malicious damage

peredur_2

I have Zurich Landlord Buildings only. Or at least that's what I was paying Zurich for. They seem to disagree!

peredur_2

And so to court with Barristers and everything on April 13th. <sigh>

dacouch

Good to hear from you Peredur, has your brief given you any indications on the chances of success.

I'd love to know the basis they are arguing (I can guess some of them) but it's probably best not to air them on an open forum until after the court case.

peredur_2

Spent all day listening to Barristers do their thing. All the talking is over. Ran out of time. Judgement witheld until May 5th.

dacouch

Did your barristers indicate how they thought it went?

What case dud Zurich put forward?

peredur_2

There was an awful lot of talk about Wayne Tank blah blah blah. I did try and pick up the references but they managed to lose me. The judge was giving absolutely nothing away.

peredur_2

We lost.....

cogito

So sorry to hear that. What reasons were given?

peredur_2

I discussed the Financial Ombudsman Service with the solicitor. It was suggested that it could take a very long time. The solicitor was pretty confident that things would go our way, as was the first Barrister and the second one (the first one could not do the court case) so we went to law instead of the FOS. In retrospect we were dealing with a pretty naive solicitor. I have never dealt with "the law" before and wanted to believe someone in whom I thought I could trust. In retrospect some of the stuff she came out with which I questioned in my head should have been challenged out loud, but again I thought that she was in control of the situation.

I have a SIGNIFICANTLY lower view of the legal process by now and if it were to happen again I would just take the rebuilding hit and move on.

Both the solicitor and the barrister expressed surprise when we lost and suggested that there was a good case to go to appeal. I'm afraid that they understood that I was significantly more surprised than they were. However, they still got paid. Zurich presented a bill of £20K and then accepted £10K.

To say that the whole thing has left a sour taste is an understatement. The only saving grace is that the whole thing will be tax-deductable eventually.

The whole episode has cost £50K. That is money we did not have lying around and we have had to take out loans. It has been a total drag.

stevemeskips

We had our flat burned down by the tennant about 3 weeks ago. I had two insurance policies running and put in a dual claim. Just been told by one of the insurers that they have declined the claim. Still awaiting on the other!