Damage to neighbour's car possibly from a JustPark booking - what to do?

esio13

Some background: we live on a lovely little street, great sense of community. There is one neighbour (let's call him Mr. X) who is known as being a bit cranky but is otherwise fine, as long as you don't get on the wrong side of him. We've lived on the street for 3 years and we've always been cordial. Our parking spaces are next to each other. He has a very nice vintage car which he takes extremely good care of, and is very VERY precious about it. 

The story: We rent our car park space on JustPark for a little extra income. A few weeks ago, Mr X comes to our door and says there has been a bit of damage to his car door. He says it's been under a cover for 2 weeks, hasn't taken it out and therefore assumes it may have been someone (a JustPark renter) who has carelessly opened their car door. He is obviously annoyed but says he's trying to be calm because we're such a nice family. 
Mr X infers that he wants us to pay for it - it would have to be a whole car door replacement because it's a vintage car. I have a look at the 'damage' which is barely noticeable (then again i'm not a vintage car expert) - it's a very slight dent on his beautiful car. I tell him I'm sorry to hear about the damage and ask if he knows when it happened so we might be able to figure out who the car owner was via JustPark (pointless now I think about it) and ask him to keep us updated, without explicitly offering to pay for the damage (perhaps somewhat foolishly as he doesn't have any proof, but we want to keep good relations).
Mr X also asks if we can put up a barrier between our car park spaces, which we do within a week, at our expense (a small expense, but still). 

Today my husband says Mr X came with the bill for the full car door replacement: £200. I wasn't in when he delivered this news. Apparently he's going to send us the invoice.
Now, I'm pretty fuming to hear he wants us to pay for the whole thing - we didn't directly cause the damage, and he doesn't have proof of who did the damage. But also I take responsibility that we rent our car space out (hence being willing to put up the barrier, even though he could have done this himself if he's so precious about his car).

I am willing to meet halfway and pay half the cost - I think this is fair. My husband wants to keep the peace (as Mr X can be a hothead) and wants to pay the whole thing from the JustPark earnings. There's no way of finding out who did the damage.

Can anyone offer some advice? I am really bad with confrontation... please help!
Is there a way to word it politely to Mr X that I am only willing to pay half and still maintain the peace? Or should we go with husband's option and just pay the whole thing and move on?

EdGasketTheSecond

If there is no proof, why should you pay anything? Or do you think it is most likely caused by your customer? If the latter I guess you could pay but make sure he signs that it is in full and final settlement otherwise if he thinks you are a soft touch he might come back with other issues in the future. I don't think legally he has a leg to stand on.

Hermione_Granger

esio13 said:

Today my husband says Mr X came with the bill for the full car door replacement: £200. I wasn't in when he delivered this news. Apparently he's going to send us the invoice.

Is that a typo as £200 seems extremely cheap for any car door replacement let alone a vintage car.
If/when you see the invoice, I would suggest contacting the named company just to confirm that it's genuine.

Manxman_in_exile

Yeah - £200 is nothing for a vintage car door.  OP - what is the car?  (If I had a "proper" vintage car I wouldn't park it on-street, although one of our neighbours does regularly park a Triumph Vitesse on-street during the summer).

I'm never sure how old a car has to be to be veteran or vintage...

Herzlos

It certainly sounds like one of your visitors did it, and if you can't figure out which one then it's on you to pay it. £200 is nothing for a door.

Just think; would you expect go split the bill if he damaged your property?

How much do you make via justpark? Is there any kind of insurance provided?

esio13

Hi all, thanks for all your responses! 
Yeah £200 is correct, but haven't got the invoice yet. It's a convertible Mercedes Benz (scared he might find this post!) i guess it could be a worse amount, but it's still £200 for something we didn't do. I'm wondering whether my approach should be "oh I didn't realise you expected us to pay for all of it" - I'm essentially looking for wording that won't cause resentment.
As an FYI we've only been doing it for about 3 months and we've made about £500 so far
There's 3 solutions I think.
1). We pay for half of it with the hopes there's no bad feeling on both sides. 
2). We don't pay for any of it which will cause huge animosity. Mr X might be fine living with that but we would feel miserable having to live on a street with bad feeling, especially since we've got on thus far.
3). We suck it up, pay it and move on (husband's preferred option and would be us being 'the bigger person') but I would resent Mr X for this.

KimJongUn88

Herzlos said:

It certainly sounds like one of your visitors did it, and if you can't figure out which one then it's on you to pay it. £200 is nothing for a door.

Just think; would you expect go split the bill if he damaged your property?

How much do you make via justpark? Is there any kind of insurance provided?

Are you for real? The OP has done nothing wrong whatsoever. It was the person who caused the damage to the vehicle who was negligent and is responsible. 

Why are you asking about the insurance from Just Park? The insurance of the vehicle driven by the Just Park user will
cover their Road Traffic Act liabilities.

Your response is absolute rubbish.

Herzlos

KimJongUn88 said:

Herzlos said:

It certainly sounds like one of your visitors did it, and if you can't figure out which one then it's on you to pay it. £200 is nothing for a door.

Just think; would you expect go split the bill if he damaged your property?

How much do you make via justpark? Is there any kind of insurance provided?

Are you for real? The OP has done nothing wrong whatsoever. It was the person who caused the damage to the vehicle who was negligent and is responsible. 

Why are you asking about the insurance from Just Park? The insurance of the vehicle driven by the Just Park user will
cover their Road Traffic Act liabilities.

Your response is absolute rubbish.

Ok, so if one of your neighbours guests damaged your property you wouldn't expect the neighbour to pay for it?

esio13 said:

As an FYI we've only been doing it for about 3 months and we've made about £500 so far

So even if you do pay the £200, your still doing pretty well?

This really doesn't sound like something you want to fall out with a neighbour over, especially if they can be difficult.

pramsay13

Legally you don't have to pay and to pursue he would have to show you have done it deliberately or been careless, which he wouldn't be able to.

However if your renters park their cars right next to your neighbour's and you are fairly sure that it must have been one of them, then for the sake of neighbourly relations it might be worth paying.

If you're going to pay then pay the whole thing rather than offer half, as your reason for only paying half is the same as his reason for not paying anything, i.e. paying out when it wasn't your fault.

In saying all that, if you are only paying out because he is 'cranky' or a 'hothead', then I probably wouldn't bother, but if you think it is the right thing to do then go ahead.

AdrianC

£200 certainly isn't a "full door replacement" on a classic Merc convertible... It's probably not even a smallish bit of replacement trim. Add a zero, by the time it's painted and fitted.

£200 for a chip and dink removal? Yeh, that's not unreasonable.

Leaving a cherished classic under a cover on-street in shared parking spaces is a bit risky at the best of times. Doing so when you know the space next to it is rented out...? Definitely a case of when, not if. Going 50/50 is a neighbourly thing to do.

esio13

Found out that he’s not getting it done through his insurer cos they told him to go thru the dealership and apparently that would have cost a lot more. He’s getting it done thru someone he knows so husband reckons he thinks doing us a favour by saving us money that way...

My husband doesn’t agree with asking to pay half cos if Mr X says no, what then? 

It’s more the principle now. How do I know he’s not gonna try and sting us for any other future ding?