Real Life MMD: Should I keep schtum over damaging neighbour's car?

jgriggle

Of course the correct answer is to own up.

But to me, that depends on the neighbour.

When I was growing up, one of our neighbours would always park on the road despite having his own driveway and garage.

When we would play out in the street (as children do) if anybody so much as looked at his precious car, the miserable old g*t would come running out of his house shouting "GET AWAY FROM THAT CAR"!

He still lives there, and if my son accidentally scratched his car would I tell him?

No chance! Although my son would still get a telling off.

Fishcakes_2

Sounds like it is a very small mark to me. I suppose the decent thing to do is get your sister to talk to your neighbour. It was her child who did this and you cant be accountable for their actions.
I have to say though, people who are overly proud of their cars cut no ice with me, and people who have private number plates are egotistical morons. If it also happens to be a flash sports car then frankly they deserve to get the thing scratched :whistle:

stars_bright

I would definitely own up to it. What is more of an issue is why the child was allowed to get in and out of the car unsupervised. What if he had locked himself in? or trapped his fingers in the door? I get really annoyed by parents that just let their children run wild and take no responisbilty for them.

babushkava

If you know that the neighbour is reasonable, by your sister's experience of him or her, then I would do the honest thing and offer to pay for the damage.

However, personal safety takes precedence, for me, over payment for damage. So if you have reason to think that the neighbour will throw a rage and take a crowbar to you or your car, then keep schtuum.

It would be a pity if such a tiny mark reached the insurers, as you will be paying an additional premium for years to come. Two years ago, I had a small slide in my car into another person's van, on ice, at about 4 mph. No damage to either car and the owner didn't even want to give me his details. I reported it to my insurer (as it said in the small print of my policy) but there was no claim made. I am paying about £70 a year extra for my honesty, that's £210 so far...

emuratty

I suppose it might come down to who was responsible for looking after the child at the time, as perhaps the parent cannot be held responsible if they weren't there. If you were supervising the child then you should be responsible, but I would certainly tell their parent what happened.

But more importantly think about the moral responsibility you have to the child to teach them to do the right thing, you should have knocked on the neighbour's door straight away and told them what happened.

Personally, I don't even let my 6 year old open his own car door if we are parked close enough to another car that the door could hit it, and the 3 year old sits in the back with child locks on.

katphan

My neighbours neice who live opposite, damaged my car by riding an old rusty bike into my car, ( I had just put a drive put in but was waiting for kerb to be lowered so was parked in road).
It made an almight racket and immediate neighbours both sides come out, she was alright and ran off. My car had £895 worth of damage and I had to put in my one and only claim. We spoke to the neighbours and the mother who merely stated I am on benefits - tough!! Police didn't want to know. She wouldn't even pay £50 excess - what was more annoying was that although the mother was on benefits, she was well known in the local pub as spent nearly everynight in the pub and had nails and hair done every week. Alot of people told her she should contibute but she was unrepentant.

hiper

Fishcakes wrote: »

I have to say though, people who are overly proud of their cars cut no ice with me, and people who have private number plates are egotistical morons. If it also happens to be a flash sports car then frankly they deserve to get the thing scratched :whistle:

If you have a valuable car and don't wan't it stolen/vandalised/damaged then it should be safely placed in a garage.

Of course then those that you seek to impress can't see that you have such a nice thing nor read the plate!

To garage or not to garage, that is the question.

jez33

hiper wrote: »

as we were both very hard up at the time we made a claim (I had NCD protection),.

how did your insurance go up if you had no claims protection?
or do you mean you had no 'no claims protection?

back to the topic: i would speak to the car owner and own up.
any case theres mobile spray companies which ive used before which would charge approx £70 -£100 so its not the end of the world!!!
you would probably find the owner would be grateful you came foreword and most decent people would let you off if its relatively minor,i know i have let people off

redglass_2

Own up. Just as you'd hope anybody spoiling your property would own up.

hiper

jez33 wrote: »

how did your insurance go up if you had no claims protection?
or do you mean you had no 'no claims protection?

Good question. I meant the former, so my NCD was not effected by the claim. My premium on the other hand was.

So I now get discount on an inflated premium rather than discount on a normal premium.

NCD protection doesn't mean that making a claim will not effect your future premiums (your riskiness), only that your 9 years NCD won't be reset to zero.

Depends on he insurer I suppose.