Vehicle Hire Company Demanding £1000 Excess Money

Gareth2703

Hi, welcome to my forum

Any help with this I would be most grateful for

In June 2016 I rent a hired vehicle for a weekend,

A couple of months after I hired this vehicle, I received in the post a letter form the hire company stating that the vehicle that I hired was involved in an accident and that I am to pay them £1000.00 excess cost.

I did not know what they were on about so just ignored the letter, I few months after this I moved house

Now in December 2018 I have had an email from this hire company demanding that I pay £1000 for excess cost for the accident that they claim happened 2.5 years ago with the hired vehicle that I rented.

They are saying that if I do not pay I will be taken to the county court for the money owed to them,

Can they take me to court over this? I deny having any accident when using the vehicle, have they got the power to take me to court. What is my rights here,

If I am taken to court, what is the best way to defend myself from false claims

dacouch

Did you have an accident?

societys_child

Did you have an accident?

I did not know what they were on about

Apparently not?

tacpot12

They do have the right to take you to court, and you have the right to defend yourself.

You will need some evidence that you returned the van in the same condition that you hired it. Photos or the inspection sheet that the hire company completed when you returned the van would be ideal. If you don't have any evidence, you can ask for a copy of the evidence that they have to see if there is anything wrong with it.

Your problem will be disproving their claim if they have falsified evidence. However, I would suggest you ask to see their repair bill for the damage. If the damage was significant enough, the repair work would have been done by a third-party and you will probably be able to check that with the company that the invoice is correct. The date on the repair invoice should tie in with the date you returned the van and any time the van was off-hire. If the company continued to hire it for a period before it went in for repairs, they should only be able to claim damages for the time it was in the repair shop - they have a duty minimise their losses, so they can't leave it off-hire without a good reason.

It would have been better to sort this in 2016 when there was a chance you still had the inspection sheet. It is not entirely unreasonable that they waited a couple of months before sending you a letter because it might have taken that long to arrange a repair and so know the cost of the damage.

Did you do a walk around of the van with the hire company employee or just leave it in the yard? Basically, you need to write down exactly what happened, who did what and who said what so that you can be clear about your version of events if you go end up in court.

System

When I hired a van once they did a meticulous walk-round with me before I took it, and we agreed any little scratches etc that were already present.
On return this process was repeated, and no new scratches were noted so I got my deposit back.
Any signs of an accident would have been pounced on immediately and noted on the form. If they sign off to say there was no damage, and give you a copy, then they can't add anything afterwards.

badmemory

Just be aware that if the vehicle had a tracker in it then it will have recorded any bumps you may have had. It will even record if you have stopped unusually quickly. It even records where any bump may have been (or if you have bumped up an unlowered kerb). Such as front offside etc.



They don't necessarily tell you that the vehicle has a tracker but it can reduce the hirer's insurance, which is massive. In many cases at least half of what you pay for a hire vehicle is insurance. The excess is also (certainly for smaller hire companies) around £1k.

badmemory

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

When I hired a van once they did a meticulous walk-round with me before I took it, and we agreed any little scratches etc that were already present.
On return this process was repeated, and no new scratches were noted so I got my deposit back.
Any signs of an accident would have been pounced on immediately and noted on the form. If they sign off to say there was no damage, and give you a copy, then they can't add anything afterwards.

The hire vehicle may not have had any noticable damage, it doesn't mean that another vehicle did not receive significant damage.