Awful removal men

Thrugelmir

lmm23 wrote: »

This question is even more important because the removal men told us they would sort it out directly with the new owners.

Then you should hear nothing more of the matter. Depending on the type of tile. Scratches are far from unrepairable.

xylophone

You employed these people- they were your agents and they have damaged the property of another while employed on your business- it is morally (let alone legally) dubious to shuffle off your responsibility on to another?

moneyistooshorttomention

plumfin wrote: »

I have no legal background, but my thoughts are that the responsibility lays with you, I am afraid. You have the contract with the removers, the new people have no legal comeback on a party contracted by another. If it were me, I would pursue you legally, expecting you to pursue the removal company. Isn't there anything in the contract that commits them to careful handling of your goods?

I only comment as we deal with a lot of rental agreements, which are in effect legal agreements, and we can only ever claim money back from someone we have the legal agreement with, not another party.

Open to other thoughts, though, as stated, this is my opinion, nothing more.

Agree with this.

Morally, its quite obviously down to OP to sort this out.

My feeling is that it would prove to be the case legally that its down to OP as well. I would think that, in the event of a court case, the buyer would argue that Completion was (for instance) at 1pm on x date and that OP's furniture was due to be completely removed by that 1pm deadline and therefore any damage in the course of removing said furniture would fall to OP to pay out for.

Until that 1pm the house was still OP's, rather than the buyers. 1pm onwards it would be the buyers house.

After all, as we all know, it is perfectly possible for a seller to renege on a deal to sell a house to a buyer all the way up to literally the last minute BEFORE Completion, but not to do so literally one minute AFTER Completion. They would have to pay a hefty penalty to the buyer if they did renege on the deal at any point in between Exchange and (the exact time of) Completion. However, I doubt very much the law would draw any distinction whatsoever between a vendor that reneged on a deal the day after Exchange on the one hand or literally right up to the very last minute before Completion on the other hand.

That being the case, the property was still basically OP's until literally the minute after Completion.

The fact that the buyers did OP the favour of allowing him not to 100% complete the removal of his possessions until after that 1pm is irrelevant. In law, the furniture was all removed at the time it should have been removed - ie before that 1pm time.

moneyistooshorttomention

nidO wrote: »

You contract a taxi and minicab when it's driving you somewhere, if your cabbie pranged into someone else with you in the back would you expect the third party to come after you, or your cabbie's insurance (which exists for this exact reason)?

Sure it sucks for the new house owner that their vendor's movers have damaged their house, but that's exactly why these companies have liability insurance, its got nothing to do with the OP.
This is also a practical issue, assuming the removals firm leave it for their liability insurers to deal with the OP would get as far as putting in a claim to the insurers and they'd say "we haven't damaged your property or caused you any loss, who are you and why are you contacting us?"

Wrong wrong wrong.

The contract is purely and simply between the removers and the OP - nothing whatsoever to do with the new owners of OP's house.

1. The removal firm are not going to be au fait with the law on the one hand

OR

2. On the other hand, the removal firm might know just enough about the law (and be hoping everyone else doesn't!!!!) that they are hoping to "play both sides against the middle" and confuse the issue so much that no-one will land up chasing them to pay up for the damage they created.

I'd hazard a guess that its position 2 and the removal firm know very well that the new owners are nothing whatsoever to do with this claim and are deliberately trying to "muddy the waters" by making out they are.

nidO

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Wrong wrong wrong.

The contract is purely and simply between the removers and the OP - nothing whatsoever to do with the new owners of OP's house.

Huh? Who ever said there was any kind of contract between the removers and the new owners? I sure didn't.
That there is no contract between the two is irrelevant, damaging stuff belonging to people you don't have a contract with is exactly what third party insurance is for, whether it's car insurance, liability insurance, or any other kind.

jjlandlord

This is not about contract, this is civil liability: When you break something you are liable for the damage.

Of course, and as expected, the removal men are trying to bamboozle everyone.

However, they are liable to the owner of the items the damaged: The the house already belonged to the buyer then they are directly liable to him.

Norman_Castle

This question is even more important because the removal men told us they would sort it out directly with the new owners. My fear, however, is that they know that it is me they are responsible to, and are therefore waiting for the new owners to pay for the repairs, seek reimbursement, only for the removal men to say "We're only responsible to the vendors who contracted us."

What have the new owners said about this?. Advise both the new owners and removal men that you will remain involved until this is resolved. It may just be more straightforward for them to deal with the current occupier.
Are the removal men insured?.

moneyistooshorttomention

But then the removal men just dealing with new owner of house would mean new owner would have to deal with "hassle" that isn't theirs to deal with. That when they doubtless have a lot of extra hassle on their plate anyway from having just moved house.

Why should they sort out someone else's problem?

DTDfanBoy

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

But then the removal men just dealing with new owner of house would mean new owner would have to deal with "hassle" that isn't theirs to deal with. That when they doubtless have a lot of extra hassle on their plate anyway from having just moved house.

Why should they sort out someone else's problem?

In law, the furniture was all removed at the time it should have been removed - ie before that 1pm time.

It is the new owners hassle as they own the damaged property, the removal companies insurance company will deal directly with the owners of the damaged property.

It's no different to the removal company backing out of the drive directly into a car carrying nuns children and kittens, the removal company will have insurance in place to cover damage to third parties.

The furniture clearly wasn't removed from the property at the time it should have been, FACT

moneyistooshorttomention

It is OP's hassle, as they were the ones that hired this dud firm of removers.

If OP involves the new owners of the house in his hassle he might find himself presented with a bill for the work involved. I would certainly be sitting there in new owners' position thinking "Right...this cost me (for instance) 5 hours of my time, when I was due to be Getting On With My Life or earning some money. I cost my time at, say, £15 per hour, so 5 x £15 = £75 OP owes me".

New owners are going to have the hassle of putting this damage right anyway after all and he'll be lucky if they don't charge him for using their time for doing that too.