Solicitor threatening county court proceedings

The_0neuk

Back in june of last year early sunday morning my elderly father had a bump with a third party. A coming together in filtering traffic near the bus station

it put a small dent in the third partys rear drivers door and a small dent in my fathers front passenger wing.

My dad suffers from short term memory loss following an industrial accident that forced him to take early retirement so the third party wrote my dads details down himself then handed my father a piece of paper with his own details.

Both said wasn't worth claiming.

Anyway I advised to sit it out and see if we heard anything and if not just get it sorted without insurance as it wasn't much...

Nothing until today....

Had a letter from a solicitors representing the third party saying as weve been unable to claim damages off your insurance company were giving you 7 days to pay circa 2.5k for our client otherwise we will issue county court proceedings.

As parents are elderly its understandably shook them up somewhat.

Now in the letter they have my fathers registration number incorrect (It refers to a black vauxahall) my fathers car is a bronze honda jazz and they also have the insurance company wrong (They have admiral but my father is with co op)

So.…

Do we ignore it as they have the fundamental details wrong or if not what's advisable?

Nasqueron

Is the reg just 1 / 2 digits or letters out and thus when they have used the reg they got the other details? That or they are doing multiple dodgy claims for PI

boliston

there is no such thing as claiming damages 'off your insurance company' - the insurance company is there to deal with negligence claims from third parties, so pass any correspondence to them and never respond directly to any claimant

The_0neuk

the reg is one digit out compared to my fathers vehicle

Aylesbury_Duck

Sounds suspicious to me but boliston's advice is correct. Contact your dad's insurer, forward them a copy of the letter and let them deal with it.

Did your father notify his insurer of the accident at the time?

The_0neuk

no because the damage on my fathers vehicle was minimal so not worth claiming for.

i said wait to see if we hear off otherp arty and then if do report it

flashg67

Not saying I always do this either, but strictly speaking, you should inform your insurance co of any incident whether you intend / suspect there will be a claim or not

Aylesbury_Duck

The_0neuk wrote: »

no because the damage on my fathers vehicle was minimal so not worth claiming for.

i said wait to see if we hear off otherp arty and then if do report it

Oh dear. This is why you should always notify your insurer of an accident, even if you're not intending to claim. If you do put this in the hands of your insurer, they will ask why you didn't declare it 17 months ago. That could cause problems.

The_0neuk

what about

"Dear solicitor man,

The details of the car are incorrect, we believe you have the wrong person, we do not, nor have ever owned the car in question. Likewise we are not insured, nor have ever been insured recently by that insurance provider"

With regards

Signed"

Aylesbury_Duck

I'd get some legal advice of your own. Your response will work if the people are chancers but if the letter is a genuine solicitor's letter (have you looked up the practice to check it and the solicitor themself exists?) then you need to be careful. I suspect that with one digit being wrong, it DOES relate to the accident. They've clearly typed that mistaken registration into the insurance database, pulled up the result of that (entirely innocent) car and its insurer, which is Admiral. How else could they have got your father's address other than through the details he gave them?

I think you'll have difficulty denying it's anything to do with your father's accident and I think you're possibly in trouble asking the insurer to step in, hence my advice to get professional help. Your father's insurer would be within their rights to increase this year's premium because of the undeclared accident and they may even cancel the policy which would cause all sorts of problems getting insured again.

Don't send that letter until you've had proper advice.

The_0neuk

from whom?