Car Damaged in Company Car Park

Phil86

Hi,
My car was recently damaged in the work carpark out side of the office while I was away on business. Normally my car would not be left on site but on this occasion I was away on a business trip and when I returned to the office my car was damaged. 
The CCTV coverage is very poor, but I do have footage of me arriving and there is clearly no damage to the car. So the damage has occurred on site while I was away for work. 

No one has come forward to say they hit my car and there are no signs up in the car park to highlight you park at your own risk. Am i left to foot the bill for the repair or are the company responsible? The message I am being told is its parked at own risk and no insurance in place to cover this. 

Thanks for any advice. 

KeithP

Who are you looking to claim from?

Ebe_Scrooge

Unless your company was negligent in some way, you'll need to claim off your own insurance.  Or, if another car hit you, and you can prove that was the case, and you can locate the owner, then you could claim from their insurance (does CCTV show anything?).  But from the information you've given, it sounds like it's going to be a case of claiming off your own insurance.

Brie

I would only expect your work to consider compensation if there was proof of someone hitting your car while doing their job in the parking lot.  Like hitting it while moving a bin or chucking a desk at it or similar.  Anything else would be down to your insurance.

Phil86

I was hoping to make the claim from work as my car wouldn't normally be there. It was only as I was asked to leave my car and travel from the office. 
If there are no signs up saying you park at your own risk does the company not have a duty of care? 

Brie

Phil86 said:

If there are no signs up saying you park at your own risk does the company not have a duty of care? 

I would only assume they have responsibility if you can prove they did the damage.  If one of your work colleagues backed into your car when leaving after work that's the colleague's fault not the company's.  Hence the need to refer to your insurance - they will need to know in any case.

biscan25

If it's not extensive damage, you could always ask your company to put it right.
Worst that could happen is they say no. Best case is they tell you to expense the damage.

Aretnap

Phil86 said:

I was hoping to make the claim from work as my car wouldn't normally be there. It was only as I was asked to leave my car and travel from the office. 
If there are no signs up saying you park at your own risk does the company not have a duty of care? 

The presence or absence of signs doesn't actually make much difference.

Duty of care means that the company has a duty to take reasonable care to ensure the safety of people using its facilities. It doesn't mean that the company is responsible for every bad thing that happens on its property, regardless of whether it is the company's fault or not. If you want to claim from the company you need to show how the company failed to take reasonable care. Asking you to come into the office before your business trip is not obviously careless or exposing you to unreasonable risk.

As above your case against the company is probably stronger if the damage was done by someone in the course of doing his job (eg taking the bins out) rather than someone simply arriving at or leaving the site in a car. If it was caused by a colleague who can't park straight then of course you have a claim against that person's car insurance, but not against the company. But if you have no idea how the damage happened or who caused it, no claim is going to get anywhere.

Unless you can find the culprit I'm afraid your options are to claim on your own insurance, or if it's minor damage fix it yourself or live with the damage.

Grey_Critic

Have you reported it to the company and if so what was their response?

sheramber

How long were you away?

i assume you mean the car was left overnight. Is the car park locked at night or could anyone use it ?

GrumpyDil

Without evidence of how the damage occurred I see no liability on the company in a similar way to parking in a supermarket car park and having your car pranged by an unidentified driver/shopping trolley etc.