Anti social neighbours written off car, what is the housing associations responsibility

Norman_Castle

Smellyonion said:

Our car was so damaged by one of their children (aged 5) to the point that it was written off. It included scratching all of the drivers slides panels, drawn a stick man on one door, dents all over the drivers side panel, chips on windows. The damage was estimated at 3.5k. 

Can you buy the salvage back? Presumably the car is still useable or could be with limited outlay.

The HA could only take action if the parents supported or encouraged the childs behaviour. Then it would be considered asb but its likely they would require a criminal conviction to take action above issuing warnings.

Your council may get involved in persistent asb

Fit cctv to gather evidence of future problems. 

root

Ignore the haters and doubters, I feel for you OP having been in a similar situation with feral children. They would trespass, throw things at my car, bounce ball against the house and car, leave their 'stuff' all over my drive. 
They weren't HA as far as I was aware, just rough. Parents didn't want to know. It was awful.

root

theartfullodger said:

5 yr old writes off car, £3.5k damage,?? Is this a wind up?

Probably easier than you think once you start factoring in replacement panels, respraying and glass on an older car so that it becomes more economical (for the insurer) to write-off than repair/replace.

TBagpuss

OP, this must be incredibly frustrating for you but it isn't the HA's responsibility. 
You can of course complain generally about the behaviour of this family and, particularly if the HA has other complaints, they may decide that they are in breach of their tenancy and start the process towards eviction, but equally they may not - their starting point would I think be to try to address the behaviour and work with the tenants to enable them to remain in their home, rather than trying to find ways to force them out. 

It's possible that you could make a claim for the money from the parents, but you'd then need to enforce it, and if they don't own a property they may well have very limited means so you could wind up with nothing, or getting paid off at £5 a month or something of that kind

Smellyonion

Thanks for the response. My thought process is that if I were a private landlord and my tenants were causing trouble in the neighbourhood and not looking after their kids, I would want them out, out of sheer respect for the neighbours and the property. I would feel a level of responsibility as a landlord to ensure that tenants were not horrible people since I made a decision to lease to them.

I just cannot comprehend the lack of respect people have for other people and their property.

teachfast

Small claims for uninsured losses is your only means to reclaim anything at all here. An added bonus is this will cause the family significant issues and may just possibly encourage some future parental responsibility; but probably not.

user1977

Smellyonion said:

My thought is that if I were a private landlord and by tenants were causing trouble in the neighbourhood and not looking after their kids, I would want them out, out of sheer respect for the neighbours and the property. I would feel a level of responsibility as a landlord to ensure that tenants since I made a decision to lease to them.

Great, but you'd have have absolutely no legal requirement to do so, and certainly none to compensate the neighbours.

AdrianC

Smellyonion said:

My thought process is that if I were a private landlord and my tenants were causing trouble in the neighbourhood and not looking after their kids, I would want them out

Housing associations are not private landlords. They are social landlords.

GDB2222

teachfast said:

Small claims for uninsured losses is your only means to reclaim anything at all here. An added bonus is this will cause the family significant issues and may just possibly encourage some future parental responsibility; but probably not.

You are going to sue a five year old?

Smellyonion

theartfullodger said:

5 yr old writes off car, £3.5k damage,?? Is this a wind up?

Whenever I've lived near HA tenants they've been nicer, better behaved, than smug middle-class home owners banging on about house prices.  But appreciate others may have other experiences.

I think it was a combination of their kids and the 5 year old was a scape goat.

I do not understand the how "Nicer, better behaved" related to house prices. The middle class children youve experienced must be extremely middle class if theyre running around moaning about house prices.

Whether you like it or not, ASB is at higher prevalence in HAs than it would be in private housing. Yes theyre not all the same but on average, theyre not.