Wall falls on car.

Siharris

Hello 
A few weeks ago a dividing driveway wall fell on my daughters car writing it off. Her landlord says the wall is the neighbours and the neighbours landlord says it's a shared wall. Her own car insurance says it is responsibility for whoever  the negligent landlords insurance to pay out.  Three weeks later her car is still under a pile of bricks and no one is claiming responsibility. 
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

elsien

It’s only negligence if they were aware it was unsafe and did nothing about it. 

What was the condition before it fell over, were the landlords aware,  and did it have a helping hand in any way? 

Aretnap

If she has comprehensive cover then it should cover this and by far the easiest option is to make a claim on her own policy. Her own insurers can then worry about reclaiming the costs from the person responsible for the wall - if they can show that the person responsible was negligent. 

If she had third party only, or third party fire and theft, then that won't be an option and she's in a bit of a hole. She can attempt to claim from the person responsible from the wall, but she will have to show negligence on their part, and if they don't accept liability then the only way for her to force the issue is to take them to court. If she can't show that the collapse was the result of negligence then unfortunately there will be nobody to claim from and it will be down to her to repair or replace the car at her own expense.If she has motor legal protection (legal expenses cover) with her car insurance then it might be of use, however it will depend on how the policy is worded - it's primarily intended to deal with claims resulting from road traffic accidents, so may be worded so as not to include incidents like this. 

Siharris

Apparently according to another neighbour a survey wall was deemed unsafe when the property was owned by someone else. Also the landlord of the neighbouring property has lost 2 lots of tenants as he refused to mend anything. But again this is not proof of negligence unless previous tenants and owner are found and willing to make statements about it. Obviously the previous owner wont do that as it would possibly make him partly responsible.

Grumpy_chap

Siharris said
 Her landlord says the wall is the neighbours and the neighbours landlord says it's a shared wall. 

She can obtain the deeds from the land registry to see who has responsibility for the wall.

davidmcn

Grumpy_chap said:

Siharris said
 Her landlord says the wall is the neighbours and the neighbours landlord says it's a shared wall. 

She can obtain the deeds from the land registry to see who has responsibility for the wall.

The title deeds are usually much less help for this sort of thing than people tend to think. In any event, I can't see this is the OP's daughter's concern, it's her insurer's problem who (if anybody else) is ultimately liable.

csgohan4

Claiming negligence is going to be very difficult sadly. It will pragmatically be that you will either write it off or claim on your insurance and accept higher premiums as a result