Car Ins claim against us -help please

abandhev

Hi,
Hope someone might be able to help us. Is there a time limit to being notified of a claim against you? It's quite complicated! our son lives in Amsterdam. He borrowed our daughter's fiance's car, and was temporarily put on the insurance. He was going past a dustcart, when a fitting at the back swung out and damaged the car. Unfortunately, he had never had an accident before, so was in a bit of shock, and stupidly, didn't take down the driver's name. He did give them his name, and our address. The dustmen actually commented that they had had to have a fitter look at this part of the dustcart only that morning, as it was loose.They said that there was no damage to the dustcart, and were amused that the car was damaged. To make matters worse, this happened about three hours before he was leaving to catch his flight back to Holland. He telephoned the council offices and spoke to a woman, who said that no incidents had been reported, and inferred that that would be the end of the matter. He left some money with us, and we had the car repaired.

This all happened eight months ago, and none of us had heard anything. Now, on Wednesday afternoon a letter arrived at our house addressed to our daughter's fiance. We were mystified, but as we were seeing them last night we didn't contact them. When he opened it, it is a demand from a company called DAS, to settle a claim from the refuse people, of £886, within 7 days, or they are going to issue county court proceeding. We are all outraged, as no-one knew anything about a claim , also to allow 7 days, when two of them are bank holidays, is just so unacceptable. The letter wasn't addressed to our son, so we don't know how they have got David's name, but our address.

Please, please, does anyone know where we stand regarding this, or how we can find out more, bearing in mind that, from the date of the letter, the 7 days is up on Bank Holiday Monday.

Thanks in advance.

BruceyBonus

The first thing to do is to contact the insurance company who insured the car at the time. They will probably want to see a copy of the letter and should be able to advise you from there.

I've taken this from the DAS website

If you are sued
If you receive a County Court Claim Form from the other driver because of an accident, you should send it immediately to your own insurers so that they can deal with it for you.

The insurance company are the experts and will be able to go through everything and help you with this.

Quentin

abandhev wrote: »

Is there a time limit to being notified of a claim against you?

For property damage claims there is - 6 years.