Retaining wall collapsed whilst viewing!

jen_79

davidmcn said:

But are you interested in buying the property?!

Ha, actually yes I am. It would be dependent on the survey obviously as some things are obviously in need of replacement (a few windows/doors) but the house is 60 years old so I can accept that. but if retaining walls start falling it does make me think twice!

Crashy_Time

Greatgimp said:

jen_79 said:

It's about 4 metres wide, maybe 3 courses tall but it was on top of a concrete slab that was head height.

These measurements look wrong - 4 metres thick x 200mm high?

4 metres wide, not thick.

jen_79

AW618 said:

jen_79 said:

It was tilting like the leaning tower of pisa and not thinking straight, I placed my hand on it to give it a wobble and of course it immediately collapsed. 

If you do go to court then do not, under any circumstances, say this.  You are basically admitting you acted foolishly.

Good point, I guess it's more with hindsight it was obviously a mistake given I know what the outcome was!

jen_79

princeofpounds said:

Best not to go into the stuff about 'seeing cracks'.

Good point, at the risk of making myself sound stupid, I didn't actively put 2+2 together at the time, I was sort of operating on autopilot and trying to take the property in. Of course now I realise seeing the cracks I should have been more careful.

Alter_ego

jen_79 said:

It was tilting like the leaning tower of pisa and not thinking straight, 

Do walls really think?

AW618

Mickey666 said:

princeofpounds said:

This is very straightforward. You are only responsible if you are negligent, and you were not. Gently leaning on a wall is not an unreasonable activity. They are lucky that it didn't fall on you, as the negligence would have been theirs. 

Best not to go into the stuff about 'seeing cracks'.

Most sensible comment so far.  

Who could possibly push over a sound brick wall without a great deal of effort and probably some tools?  The OP should tell the agent that the wall was clearly in a dangerous condition and that the owner was negligent in allowing it to decay into such a state that gently leaning on it could cause it to collapse.

As for an insurance claim by the owner, I think they'd be lucky with that as it sounds like a case of extreme wear-and-tear, which is unlikely to be covered.  As previously pointed out, there will be the issue of betterment to consider as well.

It's just one of those things - an unsafe wall, a simple accident, thankfully no-one was hurt.

What complicates it is that if the wall was obviously unsound, then "giving it a wobble because I was not thinking straight" is negligent.

"I leant on a wall and it fell over" is very different from "It looked like it might fall over so I pushed it to see if it would."

[Deleted User]

Alter_ego said:

jen_79 said:

It was tilting like the leaning tower of pisa and not thinking straight, 

Do walls really think?

Not the wall! The OP! 

Scotbot

I assume from your user name you are female and unless you are built like an olympic shot putter you would have to do a damn site more than lean against a wall for it to fall down.  Ignore them, if they follow up say  that you were very surprised by the condition of the property and what happened but as you were not injured you won't be persuing it further.  They won't be taking you to court, they are overseas and won't get anywhere anyhow.  Remember the agent is just the messenger.

AW618

Scotbot said:

I assume from your user name you are female and unless you are built like an olympic shot putter you would have to do a damn site more than lean against a wall for it to fall down.  Ignore them, if they follow up say  that you were very surprised by the condition of the property and what happened but as you were not injured you won't be persuing it further.  They won't be taking you to court, they are overseas and won't get anywhere anyhow.  Remember the agent is just the messenger.

Well her claim is that she did lean on it, and it did fall down, so I am not sure what point you are trying to make.  If you mean "you would have to do more than lean against a sound wall for it to fall down", well, yes, but nobody is contesting that it is a sound wall.
If it was clearly an unsound wall and if she went out of her way to put weight on it knowing it to be unsound then I would find it easier to accept  that she has some culpability.  In fact in her original post she appears to accept that it was clearly unsound and she in fact wobbled the wall expressly to find out exactly how unsound it was.  I am not sure that that story absolves her at all.

EDIT: Actually I don't see where "lean" has come from, to be honest, she seems consistent that she wobbled it to see what would happen.

Alter_ego

GabiB said:

Alter_ego said:

jen_79 said:

It was tilting like the leaning tower of pisa and not thinking straight, 

Do walls really think?

Not the wall! The OP! 

Then why the comma?