HGV struck house. Caught on CCTV. Delivery company denying liability for damage

usefulmale

tripled wrote: »

There seem to be a lot of budding Miss Marple's on this forum who feel all superior "proving" people wrong just because of minor inconsistencies. One can only assume they have perfect memories and never make mistakes, yet despite that suffer from a feeling of inadequacy that they need to compensate for.

Good luck getting the wall on your house sorted

It is how many court cases are won or lost. The truth can never be inconsistent.

tripled

usefulmale wrote: »

It is how many court cases are won or lost. The truth can never be inconsistent.

Even if it went to court, it would be a civil case for relatively low value, so he's not going to be cross examined by a top barrister in the High Court. It wouldn't even need to be proven "beyond reasonable doubt", just on the balance of probabilities.

usefulmale

tripled wrote: »

Even if it went to court, it would be a civil case for relatively low value, so he's not going to be cross examined by a top barrister in the High Court. It wouldn't even need to be proven "beyond reasonable doubt", just on the balance of probabilities.

Potentially, none of this sounds 'cheap' if the OP is to be believed.

NotMuchOfARindOnYou wrote: »

I arranged for a builder to review the damage (after failing to get delivery company to do anything). They are in no doubt that the internal damge to the wall is due to the external impact (internal face of wall is lifted due to force from opposite side, cracks are clean and dust free, crack lines up perfectly with impact point). Give the strength/damage from the impact they advised that the internal wall needs exposing and a specialist engineer will need to check for to see if the masonry has been damaged from the impact and whether the structural integrity of the property has been compromised. We believe it is a solid wall (100+ years old) rather than partition wall, it wasn’t really a case of brick dropping into cavities. My buld advised that the engineers assessment will involve the removal of fitted wardrobes, skirting, carpets, flooring, and obviously the internal face of the wall, prior to even assessing for structural damage, and may take the room out of use for weeks/a month

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

NotMuchOfARindOnYou wrote: »

Some advice from an American on this was, call insurance, delete facebook, go they gym, get on with enjoying your life

You have answered your own question!

NotMuchOfARindOnYou

usefulmale wrote: »

Personally, I think you are taking the proverbial. It's no coincidence that your twitter name is ProblemChild.

Taken from an Iain M Banks novel. BigSexyBeast was taken

usefulmale wrote: »

Can you prove that tile was OK before the lorry hit? Why only one tile dislodged?

No - but, I cleared out the guttering around the house the other month and it was fine, and you can see from the markings at the top that it is recent. I don't know why only one tile was dislodged. Maybe they need to hit it harder for more to come loose. It's bang on above the impact point. I said 10 ft away in my original twitter/mse submission. I just checked. It's actually only 6 feet above impact point - please don't shout at me.

usefulmale wrote: »

Unless your bedroom is on the ground floor, how has an impact 2 foot above ground level caused the internal damage shown?

Ah - well here is where I can hopefully win your trust a little bit. It is indeed on the ground floor. The entire house is on the ground floor. I'd like to get you on side, so here are a few snippets from the pre purchase home survey:

- bugalow comprising of small coach style possible outhouse with extension to rear
- original build date 1889
- approx extension date 1975
- the original walls appear to be of solid brick and stone

The section of wall that our 20-40T truck bashed into was sadly the ~127 year old, solid brick wall part of the property.

The cracks you see on the twitter photo are located horizontally spot on vs impact point (ie, straight between vertical line of roof tile and hole in wall), and run from ground level (as in, external ground level) to 170cm above ground level. The three way split to the wall where things are most noticeable is about 20cm above the external impact point, and again, slap bang on the vertical vs the impact point. Additionally, I also have two house surveys that fail to mention a 170cm crack on the internal wall, and the estate agents photos from when the property was listed showing nice clean crack free wall - all of the above are roughly 7-8 months old.

Hopefully this set's your mind at rest.

I was pointed in the direction of a site called JustAnswer and spoke to a solicitor there. Cost £44, but worthwhile in grand scheme of things and good have a solicitor backing up a lot of what has been said so far. If I ever get to the point where I can post links, I will post a link to the discussion.

I need to check a couple more things, but broad plan of action is to speak to a structural engineer in the morning and get them to give a qualified account of what happened. I am awaiting a formal reply from Wickes (though I got a phone call once MSE piled in with the twitter poking - my phone was pinging away from the retweets and then I got a call - goTeamMse!) but I'm expecting this to be a crappy 'not our problem - deal with the HGV company direct' response. ?I am also waiting for a final response from the HGV company confirming that they are really wanting to go down the route of me having to take legal action against them to recoup any loss.

General consensus from numerous sources is to do this on my own insurance, and then go after either Wickes or the HGV co for any losses not covered by insurance. I'm coming round to that. I've had enough chasing, and have got better things to do. I'll put it on a plate for my insurance co to pursue costs, and then go to court about the remainder.

Seems like a lot of hassle for a soil delivery, though the delivery was free of charge :wall:

I'll keep this thread updated as we go, and update with final resolution as it is always frustrating to find threads where people have the same issue as you, ask questions, but then never let ppl know what happened and what was learnt. If it does go to court, I'll let @usefulmale know so he can come and laugh at me / have a beer :beer:

Thanks all!