Car Park Gates Damaged Car

cattykatie

I live in a social housing property which has a private car park with electronic gates. Earlier today the car park gates started to close on my car as I was exiting the car park, this has caused damage to the paintwork on the back door of the drivers side.


The reason the gates started to close was because the vibrations of the gate opening, is causing a faulty wooden gate to come open which lies close to the car park gates - this gate is the gate to the bin storage area and has been faulty for some weeks. The lock is faulty and I personally reported it three weeks for a repair.


The repair was suppose to be carried out yesterday, I even had a call the day before confirming someone was coming out and I left details of how to access the car park with the door code for the building.


Clearly this repair was not done. After my car was damaged I phoned up firstly to ask why the repair on the wooden gate was not done, I was told it was showing as completed and then I explained no-one had fixed it and what had happened this morning.


Apparently they are now planning to send someone out this afternoon to repair the wooden gate, but how do I about claiming for the cost of repair to my car. Should I go via my insurance company?

Mercdriver

cattykatie wrote: »

I live in a social housing property which has a private car park with electronic gates. Earlier today the car park gates started to close on my car as I was exiting the car park, this has caused damage to the paintwork on the back door of the drivers side.


The reason the gates started to close was because the vibrations of the gate opening, is causing a faulty wooden gate to come open which lies close to the car park gates - this gate is the gate to the bin storage area and has been faulty for some weeks. The lock is faulty and I personally reported it three weeks for a repair.


The repair was suppose to be carried out yesterday, I even had a call the day before confirming someone was coming out and I left details of how to access the car park with the door code for the building.


Clearly this repair was not done. After my car was damaged I phoned up firstly to ask why the repair on the wooden gate was not done, I was told it was showing as completed and then I explained no-one had fixed it and what had happened this morning.


Apparently they are now planning to send someone out this afternoon to repair the wooden gate, but how do I about claiming for the cost of repair to my car. Should I go via my insurance company?

In the first instance, I'd contact the landlords.

Aylesbury_Duck

It's not clear to me which gate damaged the car but I think your first course of action would be to contact the owner of the gate and claim from them. If you make a claim on their insurance you will need to inform your insurer but be clear to your insurer that you are claiming directly from the third party. You premiums may still rise because you will have to declare the claim for 3-5 years but it's better to claim from the third party.

cattykatie

^^^^ Thank you both for your advice. Sorry I was not clear, it was the electronic car park gates that caused the damage as they started to close when they sensed the wooden faulty gate had come open.

Aylesbury_Duck

There's perhaps something not quite right about the electronic gates, either. They shouldn't close when there's a car there, and I can't see why a wooden gate would trigger them to close, either.

In any case, contact the landlord because you will make a claim for the damage to your car through them. Good luck with it.

cattykatie

The lock on the wooden gate is faulty, I think the vibrations from the electronic gates caused it to come open, it has a sliding bolt lock, but the lock is barely entering the lock, so is not secure - if you know what I mean. There was also a sliding upright bolt on the bottom of the gate but this fell off weeks ago, and the wood it was attached to is hanging off the bottom of the gate.


When the electronic gates open fully, they almost touch the wooden storage area where this gate is, but in this case they have sensed something is in the way, so they swing back suddenly with a jolt and then they stop and won't either open or close until the sensed object is moved and then when the object is moved, you need to trigger the gate to open again for it to close with the fob we have. It's during this moment when the gate bounced back to a stop / halt my car was half way through the gate and thus closed on my car.


It is rather hard to describe the set up, but I've just been out the video the fault so I've got some evidence. There's always been endless problems with the gates for years.

Money_Grabber13579

Presumably you had then driven out through the gates before they were fully open? I appreciate why you might do this, but wonder whether the landlord could try and deny liability on this basis I.e. are there warning signs stating that the gates should be fully open before you proceed?

sevenhills

cattykatie wrote: »

The lock on the wooden gate is faulty, I think the vibrations from the electronic gates caused it to come open, it has a sliding bolt lock, but the lock is barely entering the lock, so is not secure - if you know what I mean.
When the electronic gates open fully, they almost touch the wooden storage area where this gate is, but in this case they have sensed something is in the way, so they swing back suddenly with a jolt and then they stop and won't either open or close until the sensed object is moved and then when the object is moved, you need to trigger the gate to open again for it to close with the fob we have.



It is rather hard to describe the set up, but I've just been out the video the fault so I've got some evidence. There's always been endless problems with the gates for years.

If you make a claim, you will need to discribehow it happened, without a photo I havnt a clue what you mean.

cattykatie

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Presumably you had then driven out through the gates before they were fully open? I appreciate why you might do this, but wonder whether the landlord could try and deny liability on this basis I.e. are there warning signs stating that the gates should be fully open before you proceed?

There are no warning signs about waiting for the gates to fully open before exiting. They were almost fully open, I somehow believe the vibrations from the gates hitting the little knob on the floor (to stop the gates) caused the fault wooden gate to open, thus then causing the electronic gates to think something was trapped and they jolted forward and stopped, only jolted into my car half way out the gate.


_________________


I've contact my insurance company and am waiting on their repair shop to contact me to assess the damaged. I am a little annoyed that my insurance company seems to think I have to chase the housing association and get them to accept liability - surely given the evidence I took this should be what my car insurance company should do.


I should also add, the faulty wooden gate was repaired last night by the out of hours team!