Content Missing

Yorkshireman99

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

Any agreement would originally been between the OP and his father, and providing the OPs brother did nothing to make the property less secure than they were previously he has nothing to answer for.

Without knowing more detail nobody can be sure. It certainly not as open and shut as you glibly suggest. The fact that the OPs solicitor said the brother was at least partially liable makes me think we have not been told the full facts

Manxman_in_exile

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Without knowing more detail nobody can be sure. It certainly not as open and shut as you glibly suggest. The fact that the OPs solicitor said the brother was at least partially liable makes me think we have not been told the full facts

Neither has the OP said whether the brother knew of the OP's property. I take your point about a garage, but presumably there the garage is aware that the customer has not collected their car?


I'm not sure how far a bailee can be responsible for property that they don't know about. Of course, we don't know if he did or didn't. OP?

Margot123

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Bailment does not require a formal written contract. Gratuitous bailment is what you need to research. The most common time is probably when someone takes a car to a garage for repair and does not collect it for a while.

Again, you miss the point entirely that what The Law says and what The Law actually does are poles apart.

You must read a lot YP99, you always state The Law as 'black and white', and then tell others to conduct 'research'. Why do you always assume others have no experience, or are somewhat inferior in knowledge to yourself?

Yorkshireman99

Margot123 wrote: »

Again, you miss the point entirely that what The Law says and what The Law actually does are poles apart.

You must read a lot YP99, you always state The Law as 'black and white', and then tell others to conduct 'research'. Why do you always assume others have no experience, or are somewhat inferior in knowledge to yourself?

I think you are being a little unfair. In some cases the law is black and white but in many cases it is not, and can be all shades of grey in between. An apparently similar situation can have very different legal consequences. One always has to start from the fundamental principles. A common pitfall is to think that common sense and the law are always the same! The problem in researching other people.s problems on here is that one seldom knows all the detail and in may cases the question is hypothical. In this particular case the OP has not given enough information which is why I have said the brother MAY have some libility not that he does. One could well argue that the OP should not have left his property in an insecure location which he may well have done. Nothing wrong with hypotheticals, but personally prefer to actually try and help people first. Another difficulty is additional posters adding their own question that may seem similar but has significant differences. Far better to start a separate thread than confuse the issue on the first one.

P2P

Hello, to answer some of the points raised to help provide some clarity and additional info.
My brother has known for many years that my property was stored at my parents, and the door to the area in question was previously secured by a padlock. Both of my parents who have now sadly passed away agreed to allow me to store my belongings at their property for as along as I wished. My mother sadly died in March last year, and then soon after my Father passed away in August. The storage areas were still secure at this time as I had started to remove some of my property soon after Dad passed away and had access to the property and the padlock keys at the time. An executor for the will was identified via my Father's will and his wishes but due to family disputes subsequently renounced, so we were left with no one dealing with the estate. Some 4 months later my brother made an application and a grant was allocated.

Since this point he has changed the house locks and removed the padlock from the storage area where my property was kept. I have subsequently put on a new padlock but only after a considerable gap between the house being secured and me coming back to remove further items. I don't live nearby and at that point assumed the area still to be secure had no reason to rush removing any further items.

In a solicitors letter they have advised that my brother had changed the house door locks to ensure the property was secure, and asked me to start removing my property from 3 areas, stating I had access to them, these being the garage, store room and shed. When i visited to start removing further content I realised all 3 areas had been left unsecured and items were missing.

In a subsequent solicitors letter they have confirmed that they and my brother knew these areas (all 3) were not locked.

They have now secured them but only (as mentioned) after items have gone missing.

As my brother (as stated by the solicitor) is responsible for ensuring the property is secure, it seems clear to me as a layman that he hasn't complied with this R+Rs until I pointed out these areas were being left unlocked yet claims to have no knowledge of this fact despite his own solicitors letter stating I had access, and later confirming these areas were unlocked.

The value of said items is in the region of £3000 and includes various Kitchen Aid items plus a box of watches (I have photos of them all and 1 receipt).

I hope this provides some more context.

getmore4less

why did you allow your brother to be sole administrator?

P2P

I didn't even know he had made an application and if possible would now like to become a joint executor/administrator but I don't believe this is possible

Yorkshireman99

P2P wrote: »

Hello, to answer some of the points raised to help provide some clarity and additional info.
My brother has known for many years that my property was stored at my parents, and the door to the area in question was previously secured by a padlock. Both of my parents who have now sadly passed away agreed to allow me to store my belongings at their property for as along as I wished. My mother sadly died in March last year, and then soon after my Father passed away in August. The storage areas were still secure at this time as I had started to remove some of my property soon after Dad passed away and had access to the property and the padlock keys at the time. An executor for the will was identified via my Father's will and his wishes but due to family disputes subsequently renounced, so we were left with no one dealing with the estate. Some 4 months later my brother made an application and a grant was allocated.

Since this point he has changed the house locks and removed the padlock from the storage area where my property was kept. I have subsequently put on a new padlock but only after a considerable gap between the house being secured and me coming back to remove further items. I don't live nearby and at that point assumed the area still to be secure had no reason to rush removing any further items.

In a solicitors letter they have advised that my brother had changed the house door locks to ensure the property was secure, and asked me to start removing my property from 3 areas, stating I had access to them, these being the garage, store room and shed. When i visited to start removing further content I realised all 3 areas had been left unsecured and items were missing.

In a subsequent solicitors letter they have confirmed that they and my brother knew these areas (all 3) were not locked.

They have now secured them but only (as mentioned) after items have gone missing.

As my brother (as stated by the solicitor) is responsible for ensuring the property is secure, it seems clear to me as a layman that he hasn't complied with this R+Rs until I pointed out these areas were being left unlocked yet claims to have no knowledge of this fact despite his own solicitors letter stating I had access, and later confirming these areas were unlocked.

The value of said items is in the region of £3000 and includes various Kitchen Aid items plus a box of watches (I have photos of them all and 1 receipt).

I hope this provides some more context.

Thank you very much for the clear and most helpful explanation.As your solicitor has stated your btrother clearly has some liability as a bailee because he should have made sure they were secure. It might be difficult to recover the value of the watches because it could be said that you should might have stored valuables in a more secure location. I would leave your solicitor to negotiate with your brother.s solicitor to try and get a swift resolution. It might be possible to challenge your brother.s executorship but it would be costly and uncertain.

Keep_pedalling

Now you have provided full details it is clear that your brother has some responsibility, but so do you, so unless you can come to some agreement on the lost items then you should think very carefully about taking legal action as that is likely to result in costs that could easily far outstrip your current losses.

Going by your other post it sounds like getting any agreement between the two of you is unlikely to happen as your feud has already seen the executor throw in the towel, and both of you engaging solicitors. The only winners here are the solicitors.

P2P

Hi everyone and thank you for the various comments received to date.

I have just received a letter from the solicitors stating that as my stored property does not form part of the estate their client is not accepting any responsibility for any of the content either damaged or missing, so I am therefore interested in the legal position concerning 'Gratuitous Bailment'.

Is there any equivalent case law that could be used to 'persuade' my brother that he IS responsible before pursuing him legally. My intention will be to take him to the small claims courts as this process seems quite straight forwards.

Before anyone takes the stance re is it worth it...blah blah blah, the value of the missing goods including contents physically within the house (access has been denied despite 5 repeat attempts) not just in storage areas under the property which he left unlocked, amounts to many thousands of pounds (approx £7000) so it is worth it from my perspective.

Yes there will be an element of proof but I have at least 2 witnesses that will confirm said items were kept at my parents for insurance purposes, and I do have some photos and receipts to confirm purchase. Again pre-empting responses re why were these items kept at my parents and not moved/insured at my own address, this was due to an accident (broken knee) which meant my own house was rented out to provide me with an income whilst i recovered, so i moved into a friends house temporarily and the majority of my contents including more valuable items were stored at my parents as they had better insurance cover.

Any help (in particular similar or relevant case law) re Gratuitous Bailment would be most welcome