damage dispute with holiday home owner

jessjouan

Hi guys,

just looking for more neutral views on a dispute we have.
went on holiday for a week. Left early cause there was no train on the saturday but replacement bus; we did not want to travel more than 2 hours with our 18 months old boy.
Here comes saturday and the owner is now accusing us of damaging his oak floor ( it is warped and peaked that is correct, he sent us some pictures).
BUT we have not done anything to his floor, we did not spill any water , we could not clean it cause no tools to do so. on the top of that the area is talking about is by the stairs we had blocked during our entire stay wiht his armchair, kitchen chairs and other props to stop our tots to climb up ... we did not even see or realise they was a problem when we left the house ; we were aslo in a hurry not to miss our train which we did in the end!
we have looked ourselves and spoke to different wood supplier /sellers and fitters; to know how we could have possibly damage a hardwood floor ; they said even if we spilled a little bit of water it would not swell like this ; they said it takes a lot of water for a long time to do such damage ; they gave us variety of reasons why this would happen but none of them are saying we are guilty of it. we thought maybe because we moved furniture or we slept on the sofa bed as the floor is only 3 months old but they said even that would not damage a floor like this. the owner does not even want to consider all the reasons, experts have given us and we relayed to him. he says we are taking him for a fool and he has ideas of what we would have done.... he is making up some stories to make us pay for his floor, and threatens to go to court. him and his cleaners also saying we left a mess, which we have not ; we did not particularly deep clean, there was not even a broom, or a working hoover and no mop , we emptied bins, did the dishes , put every decoration we hid from our toddler back to their place. roll back rugs we also put away as our son eating is too messy. our son knocked off a vase of fake flowered that had shattered glass, we cleaned that but the vase was not broken.
he also thinks we flew from the crime scene because we left on the friday not the saturday and did not tell him. but we thought there woul dnot be any check out as there was no check in so it did not even matter; we have a message where he tells us to just dropped the keys in the letterbox when we leave. we don't know what to do he is unreasonable and making up so narrative in his head when we have genuinely done nothing of what he thinks we did.

MattMattMattUK

jessjouan said:

Hi guys,

just looking for more neutral views on a dispute we have.
went on holiday for a week. Left early cause there was no train on the saturday but replacement bus; we did not want to travel more than 2 hours with our 18 months old boy.
Here comes saturday and the owner is now accusing us of damaging his oak floor ( it is warped and peaked that is correct, he sent us some pictures).
BUT we have not done anything to his floor, we did not spill any water , we could not clean it cause no tools to do so. on the top of that the area is talking about is by the stairs we had blocked during our entire stay wiht his armchair, kitchen chairs and other props to stop our tots to climb up ... we did not even see or realise they was a problem when we left the house ; we were aslo in a hurry not to miss our train which we did in the end!
we have looked ourselves and spoke to different wood supplier /sellers and fitters; to know how we could have possibly damage a hardwood floor ; they said even if we spilled a little bit of water it would not swell like this ; they said it takes a lot of water for a long time to do such damage ; they gave us variety of reasons why this would happen but none of them are saying we are guilty of it. we thought maybe because we moved furniture or we slept on the sofa bed as the floor is only 3 months old but they said even that would not damage a floor like this. the owner does not even want to consider all the reasons, experts have given us and we relayed to him. he says we are taking him for a fool and he has ideas of what we would have done.... he is making up some stories to make us pay for his floor, and threatens to go to court. him and his cleaners also saying we left a mess, which we have not ; we did not particularly deep clean, there was not even a broom, or a working hoover and no mop , we emptied bins, did the dishes , put every decoration we hid from our toddler back to their place. roll back rugs we also put away as our son eating is too messy. our son knocked off a vase of fake flowered that had shattered glass, we cleaned that but the vase was not broken.
he also thinks we flew from the crime scene because we left on the friday not the saturday and did not tell him. but we thought there woul dnot be any check out as there was no check in so it did not even matter; we have a message where he tells us to just dropped the keys in the letterbox when we leave. we don't know what to do he is unreasonable and making up so narrative in his head when we have genuinely done nothing of what he thinks we did.

Let him take you to court, file a defence, he will loose. 

tacpot12

Was the floor warped and peaked when you put the furniture in place to block your toddler? Was the floor warped and peaked when you removed the furniture?  

I would recommend that you make notes now about what you can remember about the state of the floor when you arrived and when you left.