Car scrapped - can I claim for inconvenience?

rufusindigo

About 18 months ago I had an accident on council property - a hidden safety bollard rose up from the surface of the road and rammed the underside of my car. As a result my car sustained £1000+ of damage and I was forced to scrap the car. The council have just admitted liability. Does anyone know if I am able to claim compensation for the hardship and inconvenience of being without a car (aside from the additional travel expenses of using public transport)? I'm a single parent and it really has been a pain. I'd be really grateful if anyone could help me with this.:A

marleyboy

Pay attention to those NO ENTRY signs at the pre-hidden bollard, and your less likely to get rammed by the bollards.

OnanTheBarbarian

You can claim for loss of use & inconvenience for the duration until they give you funds to replace your car, assuming you can show you have not had funds to be able to replace the written off vehicle sooner.

The starting point is £20 a day for the purpose of negotiations, a real world figure is nearer the £10 mark, but over a long period of time, the courts adopt what is called a "broad brush approach" and sometimes the value of the loss of use claim can be capped at around the value of the vehicle, so you'd get £1k for the car and another £1k for loss of use as a realistic settlement, but push for more starting at £20 a day and negotiate down.

As for your travelling expenses, you can claim for these, but you will have to factor off what the annual running costs of the car would have been and deduct this, as you would naturally incur cost of fuel, insurance and maintenance on the car for the same journeys.

TheCyclingProgrammer

marleyboy wrote: »

Pay attention to those NO ENTRY signs at the pre-hidden bollard, and your less likely to get rammed by the bollards.

If the council have admitted liability then it would seem reasonable that OP did not enter through a NO ENTRY sign.

rufusindigo

OnanTheBarbarian thank you that's very useful information. Do you by any chance know the source for this info? Marleyboy part of my claim against the council was the fact that there was no signage whatsoever and no warning that a bollard would rise up from the surface of the road. Hence the council admitting liability!

OnanTheBarbarian

Can I assume you did not have fully comp insurance or could not afford the excess?

Can I also assume your car was written off and not capable of economic repair?

Some info here on loss of use with the relevant caselaw authorities at the bottom of page 239
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uJkwId8zvS0C&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=loss+of+use+of+car+general+damages&source=bl&ots=ojA2T3zv2v&sig=u4fvdrRelQhzIbjB7RODdzjdW2s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tQ5tVPDqL4iracf7gPAM&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=loss%20of%20use%20of%20car%20general%20damages&f=false

rufusindigo

OnanTheBarbarian Yes, that's correct, I only had third party fire and theft so was not insured for this. The repairs came to more than £1000 which not only could I not afford, but was more than the car was worth so I had to scrap it. Just to add, it took almost a year for the council to discover who was actually legally responsible for the driveway the accident occurred on. Thanks very much for the references, that's super helpful :T

InsideInsurance

Loss of use is a valid head of claim and certainly £10 per day is the norm that we used to pay back in my day.

You do need however to look at it -v- alternative transport head of claim as often the two are incompatible with each other, ie if you are taking taxis everywhere the other party wont pay for both taxis and loss of use.

Similarly given you are saying this is 18 months ago then a claim for £11,000 of loss of use plus alternative transport costs for £1,000 of vehicle damage may be very difficult to argue as having been mitigation of losses

OnanTheBarbarian

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You do need however to look at it -v- alternative transport head of claim as often the two are incompatible with each other, ie if you are taking taxis everywhere the other party wont pay for both taxis and loss of use.

Compensation for loss of use would still apply even if the person is taking taxis everywhere as they have still been deprived of the freedom of just being able to take journeys at any time they like without having to pay extortionate rates to travel by taxi.

Travel is curtailed due to the cost of using alternative transport and it serves as an inconvenience.

I can recall some caselaw from years back where the claimant was a single father and barely had a penny and due to this, the award made for loss of use far exceeded the pre-accident value of the car.

InsideInsurance

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

I can recall some caselaw from years back where the claimant was a single father and barely had a penny and due to this, the award made for loss of use far exceeded the pre-accident value of the car.

And I am sure we have all seen credit hire bills of 5 figures for t/l claims on a car worth less than a grand but the tyres are kicked harder where certain elements of the claim look disproportionate to the rest and the challenge of if all reasonable efforts to mitigate the losses is raised.

rufusindigo

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

Compensation for loss of use would still apply even if the person is taking taxis everywhere as they have still been deprived of the freedom of just being able to take journeys at any time they like without having to pay extortionate rates to travel by taxi.

Travel is curtailed due to the cost of using alternative transport and it serves as an inconvenience.

I can recall some caselaw from years back where the claimant was a single father and barely had a penny and due to this, the award made for loss of use far exceeded the pre-accident value of the car.

Onan the Barbarian. A very happy Xmas to you and I hope you've had a lovely day. Your advice was incredibly useful to me. I wonder if I could now ask you a couple more questions for when you have a free moment?

1. The council solicitors have now come back to me and offered me £500 for loss of use (as well as £1500 for loss of earnings, transport costs etc). They say they are dating this loss of use from the date of them admitting liability (more than a year after the accident) to the date when they made their first offer to me. Yet, when I added up the amount calculated at £10 a day from the date of the accident to present day it came to more like £5,700! They are also trying to offer less than £10 a day. The car was an MOT failure and therefore illegal from the date of the accident but not scrapped until 6 months after the accident. They took more than a year to admit liability. So, my question is, should loss of use date from when they admit liability or from the date of the accident and is there any legal reference I can quote to back this up? I've threatened them with the small claims court, but I'm not sure I can afford to go there and don't really want the hassle so I'm trying to fight them myself.

2. They have said "Having considered the matter further we would advise that a loss of use claim is based on individual circumstances of the case and we would consider the consumer may have had "free" access to another vehicle, or very easy access to good public transport, which we note this is the case in this instance. Therefore compensation may be based on a lower daily rate. "

My understanding from your previous answer is that "loss of use" should not be mitigated by use of public transport. Can you confirm this and do you have any reference to back it up? My understanding was that it was a separate item. I am a single mother on a very low wage and I am getting seriously fed up of this council trying to get out of paying me by implying that I had the funds to buy a replacement car!!

I'm sorry to bug you at Xmas time, but as I said the advice you gave me previously was really, really helpful and I don't want to settle for £2,000 if the amount I should be getting is nearer £5,000! Many, many thanks in advance :A