Reasonable compensation for disastrous removals

saajan_12

Check your contract for liability for damage, late delivery, etc - you may have agreed to limit their liability. In general, they are due the bulk of their fee minus any costs / losses you faced to keep the reality as close to the contract as possible.
- Potted plants left behind: What was said at the point of loading? Did you agree for them to be left? You may be able to claim for the cheapest of a) separate postage / delivery of plants; b) disposal at old place and repurchase in Scotland;
- Damaged items: for each item, the cheapest of a) market value of the undamaged item; b) cost to repair;
- Damaged sentimental items: I’m unsure here, possibly a nominal value placed
- 24hour delay: If you had taken a hotel room, then you could have recovered this but sounds like you had no direct costs.

stator

Does your home insurance have legal expenses cover? Not sure they cover this sort of thing but it's worth checking.
You need proper legal advice.

Discocat

So.. I have checked the contract and the clause that removal company thinks covers them is as follows:




13. Delays in transit


13.1 Other than by reason of our negligence or breach of contract, we


will not be liable for delays in transit.


13.2 If through no fault of ours we are unable to deliver Your goods, we
will take them into store.






To me, being stopped by VOSA for being overloaded 'is' their fault and therefore they are liable for the delay.

AdrianC

Discocat wrote: »

A representative from the company visited our house to see the volume of items and arranged a price/number of vans based on that.

Everything hangs from this. He clearly completely mis-estimated.

The contents of the property didn't change in any meaningful way between the estimation visit and the move?

What does the contract say about that situation?

What monetary shortfall will there be once the insurance claim is settled?

Are the removals firm a member of the BAR, and have you spoken to their disputes team?
http://bar.co.uk/home/about-bar/code-of-practice/

At the end of the day, if you think they owe you something above and beyond the insurance claim, and they disagree, then it's going to go legal.

Where you have photos and other relatively compact/light property of high sentimental value, then it's usually wise to move that yourself. No insurance or compensation can ever cover sentimental value.

davidmcn

Discocat wrote: »

To me, being stopped by VOSA for being overloaded 'is' their fault and therefore they are liable for the delay.

Absolutely, not sure who else they'd blame!

moneyistooshorttomention

Definitely agree re BAR. In your position - I think I'd be on the phone to them explaining what happened (assuming these cowboys belong to it).

When I had a pretty recent move I just had a very minor incident compared to yours (ie the removers had stolen a couple of items from me whilst they were doing the packing). The mere threat of going to the BAR had the firm concerned paying me what they owed me for the thefts.