Who is liable for burglary damage causing a callout?

FTBFun

ewan_steele wrote: »

Unfortunately we don't have house insurance, we just can't afford it at this stage. Recent graduates in lots of debt with hardly any disposable income etc. Just the way it is.

Sorry if this slightly OT, but you can contents insurance fairly cheaply. In fact, you can get paid to take out insurance:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/home-insurance

Might be worth considering if you're eventually considering replacing the stolen bikes.

On topic - is there anything in your tenancy agreement that says who might be liable for something like this?

ewan_steele

Thanks for the link FTBFun, I'll have a look. I'll be pouring over the contract tonight, though I have a feeling this kind of thing might be written into law and not on a contract by contract basis. Could well be wrong though.

mrcol1000

The police do have emergency powers to board up unsafe premises and bill the property owners. What are the police suppose to do with break ins? Just leave the front door wide open so anyone else can just wander in till the owner gets back to get someone to fix the damage? So your landlord would be liable. I would just keep telling them to contact your landlord and let them deal with it.
As for paying to get your bikes back thats a sad part of life. The police rarely do stuff themselves and get private contractors to do everything for them whose charges are passed onto the victim. If you want your bike back your have to pay the contractors costs. If you don't get them they will be sold off to pay your debt.
As poor as you are you need to keep money back to pay for lifes little mishaps.

Cannon_Fodder

In my tenancy agreement it states the Tenant has a duty;

"To take adequate precautions to keep the Premises including its external doors and windows secured".

and

"To inform the Landlord immediately of any items of defect disrepair or damage to the Premises for which the Landlord is liable. The Tenant must not carry out or authorise repairs except to take reasonable steps in an Emergency to restrict or diminish immediate dangers or damage".


If you have these terms, I suspect the liability lies with you. It was an emergency. If you don't, that leans towards it being the Landlord's problem.

The repairers exercised a duty of care, by acting as any reasonable person would be expected to behave. They fulfilled your obligation for you, okay without asking - but if further loss or damage had occurred you'd be liable for failing to protect the property.

You can try going halves with the Landlady, if the tenancy agreement is unclear - imo, she should be claiming on insurance, even if the excess is only 3/4 of the repair, because it may well cover the temporary fix, too. Which makes the excess half the total costs.

(Choosing to not have contents insurance is a choice you may regret, if there's a fire etc...)

Wonder if Landlady doesn't want to claim, as she hasn't told them it is let out...?

ewan_steele

mrcol1000 wrote: »

The police do have emergency powers to board up unsafe premises and bill the property owners. What are the police suppose to do with break ins? Just leave the front door wide open so anyone else can just wander in till the owner gets back to get someone to fix the damage? So your landlord would be liable. I would just keep telling them to contact your landlord and let them deal with it.
As for paying to get your bikes back thats a sad part of life. The police rarely do stuff themselves and get private contractors to do everything for them whose charges are passed onto the victim. If you want your bike back your have to pay the contractors costs. If you don't get them they will be sold off to pay your debt.
As poor as you are you need to keep money back to pay for lifes little mishaps.

Yeah, the bikes are gone, it wasn't worth it. I told them to keep them and auction/crush them, probably would have even if I did have the money to hand - a damaged £400 learner bike isn't worth £150+ to get back, especially as the damage was quite bad from what the guy described to me over the phone. That's the reason I only got third party insurance for them too. By the time you've paid the excess and taken a hit to your claims... just not worth it.

I understand it from the point of view of the police, and I understand it from the point of view of the Locksmiths; they were called out for a service and want paying. I get that. It boggles my mind that this kind of thing doesn't come out of the police budget that we already pay for.

I'm trying to work towards keeping some money back, but I have perhaps £200 disposable at the end of each month at the moment. This invariably gets eaten up by something - e.g. needing a washing machine etc. I rarely go out etc and still end up struggling through the end of the month. The moment I can afford to save, I will be.

Mum_of_3_3

welshy_2002 wrote: »

Hello there, welcome to the forum.

The above is baffling me... Are you saying the police were going to charge you to recover the stolen bikes?

My other half had his Transit stolen a few years back and miraculously it was found by the Police (minutes after we had reported it stolen) and they took it back to a compound for safe storage. We then had to pay to get it released as it was being kept by a private company.

TBH we were more than happy to pay the release fee as it meant that we didn't have to go through the rigmarole of claiming for it on the insurance. Also, if the Police hadn't towed it back to the compound no doubt it would've ended up being re-stolen.

OP - I expect the Police thought it better to secure your garage in case everything else in there got nicked too! I would ask your LL is she will go 50/50 on the bill.

M_o_3

clutton_2

""2) I didn't ask them to come out and do the work that night, nor would I have done was I there.""

so what would you have done ?

ewan_steele

clutton wrote: »

""2) I didn't ask them to come out and do the work that night, nor would I have done was I there.""

so what would you have done ?

Got some wood, screws and a drill, all of which I have, and sorted it myself. Rather than being charged £60 for the cheapest bit of plywood you've ever seen and £140 for the callout charge. And yes, I understand things from the perspectives of all involved, police included.

clutton_2

i think the law is unclear in all this.... i think you and LL have to come to some sort of joint payment.. why should the guy who came out and made you secure have to suffer ? he really IS the innocent bystander in all this...

ewan_steele

That's what it comes down to. It just annoys me that I (like most of us) pay a lot of council tax, and every single dealing we've had with the police so far has resulted in them farming out work on our behalf without asking, only for us to be charged extortionate fees. He is an innocent bystander, however his charges are extortionate. Off peak callout or not, £200 for what is 10 minutes work (maximum) and a very cheap bit of plywood is now exactly a figure which makes me want to put his feelings first. Had the charge been a little more reasonable, then yes, maybe I'd feel differently about this.

This does not make me respect the police at all, and I feel that after a double burglary I've been hit with charge after charge as well as losing property all because of the police - who failed to even catch those responsible.

On top of this, our landlady says there's no way she will pay a penny towards this. She's refusing to claim on her insurance because of the excess, so 6 weeks down the line we still have no access to our garage because the door is not functional and still boarded up. She says she will look into a cheaper fix for the garage door, but that has yet to materialise. We have never been late with rent, in fact we pay a few days early each month, for the month ahead. We keep the house and gardens in good condition and well maintained and she told us the last tennants trashed the place. If she claimed on her insurance ("I didn't realise the excess was so high" - perhaps minor details like that should be looked at before taking out a policy...) which presumably she has in place for instances just like this, she could add this charge onto the claim. I realise that from a legal stance none of this probably matters, but you can see why I feel a little bit put out by the whole thing.

The reason I thought the LL might be liable for such charges is that if our boiler broke, it would be her responsibility to fix it. If someone threw a stone through our window, it would be her responsibility to fix it. So I assumed that if there are fees as a result of a burglary, it'd be her responsibility to pay. It's possible this is not the case, which is why I wanted some clarification.

It's worth noting that we do have a good relationship with the LL; despite what I've said here I do understand all parties point of view, including that of the LL. I'm therefore not going out of my way to sour things.