Landlord's shelf collapsed, damaged my stuff

Lum

A friend of mine is looking after some of my stuff for a while as I've had to move house suddenly. She is renting from a private landlord, but is on housing benefit and does not have home contents insurance. She is also planning on moving out in a few months.

One of my items was a limited edition Escaflowne figure, that is quite hard to get hold of now. This was put on a high up shelf that was attached to the wall when the landlord was still living here and showed no signs of weakness or any problems like that.

Earlier today we found the shelf had come off the wall and the model is broken into a number of pieces, some of which are cracked, it's not really repairable without extensive sculpting and fabrication at which point it's not original any more anyway.

Question is, who is liable? I'm not interested in taking any action against my friend, it's not her fault, though she is blaming herself for it and is actually more upset about it than I am, I would be going after the landlord.

Problem is the landlord won't even fix the mould and damp that was present before my friend moved into this place (hence the intent to move out) so getting anything done about this seems unlikely.

What should I do?

LEJC

this is the sort of thing that would usually be covered by an accidental damage condition of home contents insurance...sadly if your friend did not have this then the fault is yours for leaving a valuable item with her.

pmlindyloo

You could also check your own contents insurance as some policies cover this kind of thing.

dodger1

Lum wrote: »

One of my items was a limited edition Escaflowne figure, that is quite hard to get hold of now. This was put on a high up shelf that was attached to the wall when the landlord was still living here and showed no signs of weakness or any problems like that.

Based on that I'd say the LL isn't responsible, it was just an accident and that's why we should have contents insurance including accidental cover. It's so cheap these days.

Mallotum_X

I think its down to you, if its an expensive item then you should have either made sure it was insured or protected better.

Even if your friend had contents insurance you wouldn't be covered for the damage as it wouldn't cover you storing things in her home.

Sorry this wont be what you want to hear but sometimes stuff happens.

If you go after the landlord all you are doing is giving him ammunition to accuse your friend over overloading the shelf and causing the damage.

Lum

A goodwill gesture from someone who thinks it's ok to rent a mouldy ****hole to someone for a year seems unlikely. I guess it's time to investigate how the shelf was constructed and mounted, and whether the mould had anything to do with the failure.

mrginge

So let me get this right.

You gave a valuable item that you don't have insured to a friend who also doesn't have insurance.
The item was placed in a location (by you or your friend?) that was deemed to be secure and would support the item.
The item was then damaged when the shelf it was placed on fell off the wall.

I assume you are not accusing the landlord of maliciously causing the damage to either the item or the wall or the shelf?

If you want someone to blame then there are two people in the frame.

You.
Your friend.

The landlord has as much responsibility for this damage as I do. In fact, the landlord may have a cause of action against you or your friend for damage caused by the shelf falling off the wall after you decided to put something on it.

Lum

Ok a quick investigation of the shelf, shows that it's got four mounting holes that would normally be put up with screws and rawlplugs, however there are no rawlplugs and it was simply nailed to the wall with two lost-head wood nails (not masonry), the bottom two mounting points were not used at all, there are no holes in the wall where the mountings would have been.

Claiming on my own insurance seems unlikely, it's in my ex-partners name and it's not a good break up, but I really don't want to go into the specifics there.

LEJC

But to be honest it could well have been a decorative shelf and actually serve no purpose for putting things on it...
I can understand your upset at something being broken but to now try and blame anyone but yourself seems very unfair on your friend and the LL...although it does seem that you arnt blaming your friend for not having insurance..
Your ornament broke...it was not insured it is sadly your place to replace it.
From the LL point of view what proof do you have that the ornament was placed correctly on the shelf?

mrginge

Lum wrote: »

Ok a quick investigation of the shelf, shows that it's got four mounting holes that would normally be put up with screws and rawlplugs, however there are no rawlplugs and it was simply nailed to the wall with two lost-head wood nails (not masonry), the bottom two mounting points were not used at all, there are no holes in the wall where the mountings would have been.

Claiming on my own insurance seems unlikely, it's in my ex-partners name.

So your original assessment of the shelf not showing any signs of weakness turns out to be incorrect after a quick inspection.

Which makes me wonder why you didn't do this BEFORE you put this figure on it.

Take responsibility for your own actions.

LEJC

Lum wrote: »

Claiming on my own insurance seems unlikely, it's in my ex-partners name and it's not a good break up, but I really don't want to go into the specifics there.

so are you saying you dont have insurance either?


It makes no difference if your spltting with a partner was amicable or not...if you have no insurance on your belongings and you leave them with someone else for safe keeping who also has no insurance....then if they are damaged thats your fault.