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

user1977

eddddy said:

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.)

It's a bit more straightforward where the consequential loss obviously is a direct result e.g. a roof leak isn't fixed and there's then water damage to the flat below.

But in the OP's case, who can really say that the theft wouldn't have happened even if e.g. security guards' training was better or whatever? There's no principle that anybody running a CCTV system etc is indemnifying everybody against bad stuff happening on their watch.

_Penny_Dreadful

From_Cordoba said:

Hi Leasehold says nothing about bike storage Cage. But it mention that is prohibited to storage bikes in the Winter Garden or Balcony. So basically the only place would be a bedroom or the living room to stroage the bike. 

That exactly where mine are stored right now…in my living room. 

I’m not very familiar with leasehold/freehold situation as I’ve never owned a flat in England but I’m not sure you’re going to get anywhere with the freeholder. Have you been in contact with your neighbours who have also had their bikes stolen? 

goater78

Its annoying but at the end of the day this is why you have insurance.

eddddy

user1977 said:

But in the OP's case, who can really say that the theft wouldn't have happened even if e.g. security guards' training was better or whatever? There's no principle that anybody running a CCTV system etc is indemnifying everybody against bad stuff happening on their watch.

Yep - but my post was specifically about breach of lease or negligence.

As I mentioned, based on what the OP has said so far, it's not clear that there is any basis for a claim. To have a chance of a claim succeeding, the OP needs to look in a different direction - i.e. breach of lease or negligence. 


A random example might be that the freeholder knew that the lock on the bike cage was insecure, but didn't do anything about it, and didn't warn the leaseholders.

Or maybe even that the freeholder knew there had been lots of previous thefts from the bike cage - but didn't take reasonable steps like warning leaseholders or improving the cage's security.

Plus evidence that, on the balance of probabilities, the theft would not have occurred if the freeholder had performed their responsibilities and/or acted reasonably.