2x Theft of bicycles from a safe place in my building Can I sue the management company?

From_Cordoba

How about requesting a refund of the security portion of last 12 Month service charge? If they refuse open a small court claim . they have to be accountable for something. Don't  you think?

propertyrental

From_Cordoba said:

Hi Leasehold says nothing about bike storage Cage. 

Does it say anythhing about security generally? I assume it must since you are (presumably) paying for

a Gated only acceible by residents with a magnetic Key, CCTV Cameras, Around  6 Sercury Guards

but I can't imagine it says anything so specific that the above breaches the terms..

If your flat itself was broken into, would you sue? Or claim on your insurance? This is no different.

 after reportin this to security I was informed they have the Thieft on CCTV but they can't share the images to me.

but they can with the police. Presumably you've reported it to the police (you'd have to if making an insurance claim). The police are under-staffed and over-worked, so may do little, but if you press them, they might view the CCTV.

user1977

From_Cordoba said:

How about requesting a refund of the security portion of last 12 Month service charge? If they refuse open a small court claim . they have to be accountable for something. Don't  you think?

That might be appropriate if they were providing no security guards, no CCTV, etc.

theartfullodger

From_Cordoba said:

2x Theft of bicycles from a safe place in my building Can I sue the management company?

... I can sue the treasonous Johnson over lying to the queen, but may not win. Yes you can sue. 

Would suggest you try instead to arrive by negotiation at a mutually satisfactory arrangement with the management company and/or the freeholder (usually a separate entity, often "owned" in equal shares by flat-owners).  Suspect it may be only with the freeholder that you have a formal contractual relationship..  the freeholder then having a formal relationship with management company. Do you pay the management company directly please??

GDB2222

You may be able to get the police involved, given that there’s cctv footage. Usually, the criminals wear hoodies and scarves, so they can’t be seen, but I doubt that security would have let someone in disguised like that. 

The police generally don’t investigate this stuff, because it’s so difficult to get evidence, but maybe your case is different.

bouicca21

I’m tempted to say that a secure bike unit is almost an invitation to thieves- it advertises the existence of the bikes.  Sounds as though someone has been watching and knows there were decent bikes in there. Presumably those locks were gold secure?  Are the bikes on Bike Register? At least if they are registered there is a chance of recovery.

Mine are stored in a garage with a flimsy padlock.  It’s a constant worry but  I just hope that being out of sight, registered and secured to each other with a gold secure d lock will be enough …

GDB2222

I store several bikes in the back garden, but they are not worth much.

MobileSaver

From_Cordoba said:

I was wondering if it was worth all the hassle and money to open a small court claim to recover the cost of the bicycle that was not insured.

Your agreement with the management company or whoever will almost certainly include a clause that they are not liable for such things and so you can't sue them. The only way to counter this would be to sue for negligence but proving their negligence directly resulted in your financial loss will be nigh on impossible.

Perversely their failings in the past might even make it even harder to sue for the second bike. You have a legal obligation to mitigate any losses so knowing they were rubbish but then not insuring the bike means you have lost the full value of the bike rather than just a smaller excess. So you could "win" a case only for your time, effort and costs to be more than any payout if it's only for what an insurance excess would have been.

TL;DR Move on and, frustrating as it may be, don't waste any more time or effort on this and consider insuring all your bikes next time.

eddddy

From_Cordoba said:

How about requesting a refund of the security portion of last 12 Month service charge?

That's not really how service charges work.

• Presumably your lease requires/allows the freeholder or management company to provide security

• So the freeholder/ManCo have probably hired a security company to do patrols - or they might use their own employed staff

• The bill for the security patrols will be divided amongst all the leaseholders

• If the patrols aren't being done properly - you should report this to the freeholder/ManCo. (They might not know, unless leaseholders report it.)

But if the freeholder has done something that is not 'reasonable', you might have grounds for saying the service charge is not 'reasonable'.

For example,

• Did the freeholder/ManCo do 'reasonable' checks on the security company before hiring them (e.g. check references etc)

• Did the freeholder/ManCo do 'reasonable' checks that the patrols were being done

• Did the freeholder/ManCo do react in a 'reasonable' way to any complaints by leaseholders about the security

If you go to Tribunal, depending on the facts, the Tribunal might decide that it's not 'reasonable' for you to have to pay some of your service charge.

eddddy

More generally, if the Freeholder/Management company has breached the lease in some way, or somebody has been negligent - you could try making a court claim against them for your consequential losses.

But it's not at all clear that a breach of lease has occurred or that anyone has been negligent.

 
(I've persuaded Freeholders to cover my consequential losses on a couple of occasions - once for breach of lease + negligence, and once for negligence. But they were very different cases to yours. In both cases, the consequential loss resulted from damage to flats.)