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Verbal agreement question following car accident
Hi
I was involved in a car accident 2 days ago (Friday) in which the other driver pulled out of a junction straight into the road in front of me. Despite applying my brakes the collision was inevitable. The other driver admitted liability immediately and gave us all his policy details. For the remainder of the day myself and my passenger were involved in several long and protracted phone calls with our insurers, Zenith. We were stranded 200 miles from home, car towed away by the rescue truck and getting nowhere with Zenith. Lo and behold we received an unsolicited phone call from the other persons insurers who offered us a hire car immediately and said that they would take care of all repairs.
We were so relieved to be getting the hire car and eventually got home at 10pm, almost 12 hours from originally setting off.
The following day, Saturday we were feeling extremely sore, distressed, completely numb and shaken from the crash and feeling that we had received an extremely bad service from our ow. insurers. We then received a call from our insurers solicitors who told us they would be pursuing a claim for personal injury from the third party. We were quite bewildered and agreed verbally via the call that we wanted to pursue a claim. We answered a lot of questions about our injuries and told that their fee would be 25% of a no win no fee claim. They said that they were recording our call and that they would be sending documents out to be signed.
Since this happened we have felt that we may have agreed to something verbally that is legally binding. We would like some time to recover and think about our health before we agree to any claims made on our behalf. My question is this: have we entered into a verbal agreement and is it legally binding? ?Any advice would be gratefully received. Thank you
I was involved in a car accident 2 days ago (Friday) in which the other driver pulled out of a junction straight into the road in front of me. Despite applying my brakes the collision was inevitable. The other driver admitted liability immediately and gave us all his policy details. For the remainder of the day myself and my passenger were involved in several long and protracted phone calls with our insurers, Zenith. We were stranded 200 miles from home, car towed away by the rescue truck and getting nowhere with Zenith. Lo and behold we received an unsolicited phone call from the other persons insurers who offered us a hire car immediately and said that they would take care of all repairs.
We were so relieved to be getting the hire car and eventually got home at 10pm, almost 12 hours from originally setting off.
The following day, Saturday we were feeling extremely sore, distressed, completely numb and shaken from the crash and feeling that we had received an extremely bad service from our ow. insurers. We then received a call from our insurers solicitors who told us they would be pursuing a claim for personal injury from the third party. We were quite bewildered and agreed verbally via the call that we wanted to pursue a claim. We answered a lot of questions about our injuries and told that their fee would be 25% of a no win no fee claim. They said that they were recording our call and that they would be sending documents out to be signed.
Since this happened we have felt that we may have agreed to something verbally that is legally binding. We would like some time to recover and think about our health before we agree to any claims made on our behalf. My question is this: have we entered into a verbal agreement and is it legally binding? ?Any advice would be gratefully received. Thank you
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Comments
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The call was almost certainly not from your insurer's solicitors, but from a no-win-no-fee lawyer.
Did you actually suffer any significant injury? If not, they will rapidly lose interest.
Most agreements are verbal, yours was also oral. I don't know whether it's binding (others will advise), but the fact that they want you to put it in writing (also verbal) suggests not.0 -
The other parties insurers got you into a reasonable priced hire car that day to save them the added expense of you getting an unreasonable priced hire car from your insurers claim management company.
If you have legal cover on your insurance then you do not need to pay someone 25% of your compensation claim, if you have injuries that is.
Doubt very much that this verbal agreement is binding without you looking at paperwork and signing and returning it.0
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