Neighbours Wall Wrote Off My Car

tasharthur

Just wanting a bit more advice. My neighbours wall collapsed on my car 2 days ago. At the moment we are assuming it was because of the wind during the night. Basically a neighbour called me to tell me a wall has collapsed, but thought it was just near my car, not quite on it. This was a 7.44 am. I went out immediately and discovered my car had been hit quite badly by the wall.
I knocked on their door but no one answered. Turns out they were away. I carried on to take pictures of the incident and also called my car insurance people.


Ive never had to make a claim before so weren't sure what to do. I went back out to the car to try and get the attention of their neighbour, in the hope they may have the owners number. Luckily he had his sons. He did come out as soon as he could. He said don't worry about going through insurance ill sort it. My husband told me not to go down that route, which I thought was a bit wrong of him to ask anyway. I don't really know them, and if they made a hash job of it id be In an even worse position. Plus I wasn't sure if it was just bodywork damaged or whether any mechanical items had been damaged at this point. So I said no ive called insurance anyway (I believe you have to regardless of whether a claim is being made or not?) they started to clear the wall off my car and I moved it to the front of my property whilst waiting to hear back from my insurance company. (my front access is a green area with no roads which is why is wasn't there anyway before anyone asks and I could be asked by police to move it)


Anyway next day the garage the insurance people instructed collected my car and left me a courtesy car. The guy whos wall it was, was moving a car from his garden out on the road and proceeded to clean up the mess. He didn't even acknowledge me or speak to me. I decided them to go down and talk to them about what they were going to do about my car. I now have a £350 excess bill to pay. All I got was im sorry theres nothing we can do. I don't feel this is fair. Their wall has damaged and subsequently now written off my car. All im asking is for the excess to be paid. My car insurance wont pursue their home insurance to cover this cost.


The settlement offer probably wont be enough to replace the car, especially after they take their excess so im now looking at loosing my mode of transport which is important to me and my family is getting us about to do daily activities. Am I within my rights to ask them to pay this? I have been told that I could possibly claim for neglect, but ive also been told this could be difficult to prove.


I am in the process of putting it all in writing and formally asking them to pay this, then possibly a letter before action and then small claims but want to know whether my case is worthy or whether the court would say its just one of those things. Im just so angry ive now lost my car and aswell 2 years no claims bonus off a clean 7 year record so also premiums will go up - plus ive still got to pay my insurance as ive literally just gone into a new years policy! Help please x

JethroUK

tasharthur wrote: »

.... I decided them to go down and talk to them about what they were going to do about my car. I now have a £350 excess bill to pay. All I got was im sorry theres nothing we can do. I don't feel this is fair. Their wall has damaged and subsequently now written off my car. All im asking is for the excess to be paid. My car insurance wont pursue their home insurance to cover this cost.....

Your mistake was involving your car insurance despite being told not to

When your neighbour said they would "take care of it" you assumed they meant bodge up your car when they probably meant claim off their household insurance where you are still entitled to have your own repair estimates done

Now you have a to take care of your car insurance including no more no claims bonus and increased premium for the next few years

You can still claim against your neighbour for your out of pocket expenses that are not covered by your insurance (the £350 excess), to which they may just get their insurance to take care of otherwise you could take them to small claims court

All that said it sounds like you are back on the road and your car is being taken care of by someone insurance so dont fret and just let the wheels go round now

Im sure your neighbours didnt mean for it to happen so I would tell them you need to claim for your £350 out of pocket because your insurance is now taking care of the rest

tasharthur wrote: »

....The settlement offer probably wont be enough to replace the car,...

It HAS to be - thats the whole point of insurance - if you cant buy exact same car/condition then buy one anyway and hassle your insurance for the difference but dont stress over a car

I appealed to my insurance when they wrote my car off and didnt give me enough to replace my car - I found one almost identical (get the evidence), I bought it (so Im back on the road and stress free), I showed they how much it cost me and they sent me a cheque for the difference

tasharthur

No they didn't mean go through their insurance to sort my car out - they meant, they know someone who may be able to fix it - so if it wasn't done properly or satisfactorily id be in a worse position, as I probably wouldn't be able to do anything afterwards. Judging by what the garage has been quoted to fix it anyway, the person they are referring to if he is "good" at what he does would have told them its unfixable.


Its the whole drivers side including wheels that needs replacing

tasharthur

im not back on the road yet - I can still cancel my insurance claim, but im worried their house insurance may wriggle out of their claim to their wall anyway because of the act of god clause? That's the main reason my car insurance wont pursue them because if they say that all is lost anyway.


The scrap yards picking my car up today and will tell the insurance their value. Its not worth £1000s, maybe £1500 at most. So finding another car around that value that was in a good condition like mine may prove difficult after they take their excess fee too. No claims and extra premiums I will have to live with - that's fine - but would like to claim back the excess fee which I feel reasonable as this isn't my fault either. Morally if you damage someone elses property, you'd offer to pay for it!


If I could upload the images from the state of the rest of their wall I would - I don't believe whoever built it, did a very good job, they've got half their wall pinned up and its leaning, and a corner bit they had built at the same time as the wall that collapsed is all cracking

tasharthur

Yes it may be just a car, but its my car! it gets me and my family around. I cant really do public transport, my youngest is autistic - that situation of being with strangers in a closed environment is very uncomfortable for her.

pinkshoes

You did the right thing going through your insurance.

My parents had something very similar recently with a piece of garden furniture from a neighbour being blown and damaging their property.

You need to push your insurers to claim off the house insurance of your neighbour. Do your have your neighbours house insurance details?

I also successfully claimed off someone's house insurance to cover the full cost of damage to a car after a drunk person fell over and fell into our car causing a huge scratch and dent!!! It was quite funny at the time! It did jot affect our no claims bonus or anything.

tasharthur

Im going to ask for their insurance details today, their assessor is coming out today, so im hoping to catch him to see what he actually says about the wall. If they can claim, ill be able to claim off their insurance. If they cant, ill have to claim from them directly.

deanos

wind is act of god there insurance wont pay out unless the wall was in bad condition, a friends roof tile fell off and put a big dent in another neighbours roof the other year and the neighbour had to claim off the car insurance as the home insurance wouldn't pay out, i would have thought this is a similar situation ?

Marktheshark

To claim damages from the Neighbour you will have to prove Negligence.
Was the wall already unsafe and they failed to act, but if also what you did to mitigate the risk if you knew it was unsafe also comes in to play.

If it was down to Wind damage and unforeseen, without provable negligence your chances of claiming anything are reduced substantially.

Hintza

As deanos says unless you can prove negligence then their insurer won't be paying out.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't write to them and you should provide any photos or evidence that the wall was was neglected or unsafe.

tasharthur

The bit that is pinned up is next to a public footpath. The bit I was parked next too on the road is a bit they said they had replace because they were aware the wall was unsafe. Which I didn't know before this!


You don't expect a wall to fall down, yes garden fences and roof tiles ive read aren't usually covered because they do tend to fall etc but not garden walls!