breakage - replacement & item 'ownership'

yappycat

Hi, odd question and had no idea which forum it belonged in so admins feel free to move it if appropriate
My brother-in-law caused damage to my partners motorbike - it was an accident but an accident caused by complete idiocy on his part. It's taken him 2 months to actually replace the damaged parts and we're gonna have to spring for the fitting as we didn't want the bro-in-law fitting them as he wanted to (he's not qualified and tbh we didn't really want to leave the bike in his care again).
Now he's saying that the old damaged parts that are being replaced 'technically belong' to him and wants to give them to a friend who says he can use them.
This kinda got my back up as the bike is less than 1 year old and my partner hasn't even ridden it yet as he's in the process of completing his full test. As to the legal 'ownership' of the parts that are to be replaced I have no clue - can't find any info on the web. Anyone know? Or is it a case of social etiquette?
If the latter then I'll be inclined to tell him to get stuffed considering the hassle we've had putting his mess right

wealdroam

yappycat wrote: »

Hi, odd question and had no idea which forum it belonged in so admins feel free to move it if appropriate
My brother-in-law caused damage to my partners motorbike - it was an accident but an accident caused by complete idiocy on his part. It's taken him 2 months to actually replace the damaged parts and we're gonna have to spring for the fitting as we didn't want the bro-in-law fitting them as he wanted to (he's not qualified and tbh we didn't really want to leave the bike in his care again).
Now he's saying that the old damaged parts that are being replaced 'technically belong' to him and wants to give them to a friend who says he can use them.
This kinda got my back up as the bike is less than 1 year old and my partner hasn't even ridden it yet as he's in the process of completing his full test. As to the legal 'ownership' of the parts that are to be replaced I have no clue - can't find any info on the web. Anyone know? Or is it a case of social etiquette?
If the latter then I'll be inclined to tell him to get stuffed considering the hassle we've had putting his mess right

In my opinion, your BIL is right... the old parts belong to him.

If that wasn't the case, why do you think you, or your partner, are entitled to both sets of parts?
I believe that would amount to betterment.

I don't understand what "the bike is less than 1 year old and my partner hasn't even ridden it yet as he's in the process of completing his full test" has to do with it?

yappycat

I didn't know who the old parts belonged to - which is why I asked the question.
We were hoping the guy who is actually fitting the replacement parts might knock a few quid off the cost of his time in exchange for them (one of the hand guards is relatively unharmed, but the other is smashed and unusable), seeing as BIL point blank refused to pay anyone to fit them.


Edit: I said the bit about it being a brand new bike as talking about 'old' parts needing replaced made me feel like we were trying to get more out of the situation than we should expect.

InsideInsurance

If he pays full price for the new parts and full price for the fitting of them then yes the salvage would belong to him. Obviously this is where the thing runs into trouble because he is not actually paying the price of the fitting.

In the normal run of things he would be paying the fitting and so it would be his choice to either pay full price fitting and keep the salvage or get discounted fitting but forfeit the salvage to the fitter.

yappycat

Thanks, that makes me feel a bit easier about using the parts to mitigate the cost of fitting. 'Betterment' is most definitely not what it feels like - we've still had to pay for someone else's carelessness and today when we went to get the replacements fitted it turned out that they didn't come with a complete set of fittings needed >.< fortunately we were able to salvage these from the damaged parts so further cost happily avoided

harrys_dad

So, your brother in law borrows a bike, damages it, then pays for new parts but not fitting costs (which he is not qualified to fit), then gets arsy about having the old parts back? Sheesh, shame you can't choose your family.

DoctorFoster

Before he said this, what were your intentions for the damaged parts?

Probably to bin them. I know it's a matter of principle but life's too short.

Get him to fix the bike, let him keep the parts and forget about it.

yappycat

Yeah well that's true, just want it all behind us so we can forget about it. Unfortunately I don't think BIL will let the old parts thing drop (as easily as he dropped the bike anyway) so I reckon there's still more stress to come yet

yappycat

DoctorFoster wrote: »

Before he said this, what were your intentions for the damaged parts?

Probably to bin them. I know it's a matter of principle but life's too short.

Get him to fix the bike, let him keep the parts and forget about it.

Too late for that now, he wanted to fix the parts himself which we weren't happy with. We had to pay for the repair and salvage fixings off the old parts anyway as the new ones arrived without a complete set. The bike is sorted now and that's all we wanted, BIL will just have to accept that.

Bantex_2

How did the accident happen?
Did he damage the bike on purpose?
Was he riding with permission?

bris

Why isn't the insurer dealing with it?