House fire no insurance

Themurphys1

I recently had a house fire due to an air fryer I purchased from a big retailer, I was a housing tennant with no house insurance and me and my children literally lost everything due to this. 

Thankfully non of us was Injured just emotionally and mentally drained with the aftermath we have faced. 

It has been two months now and I originally reported the fire to resolver online for B&M and am now in process of dealing with their Solicters due to them contacting their Solicter to contact me. 

They have asked me for prof of purchase and the fire report which I am currently in the process of getting from trading standards as I would have to pay £177 for it from the fire service which I can not afford right now. 

My question is do I need a Solicter at this point and if so where do I start looking for one I have looked online and rang a few who don’t take on claims like this. 

I didn’t know it was a claim until I got email off the Solicter, I did state when contacting resolver that I wanted compensation for this as me and my three children have been left nothing at all, we have thankfully been re homed and the housing have gone through their insurance company to recover costs of fixing the house back up, 
I have had to start all over again and 20 plus years of memories have gone all my children’s stuff from birth all gone. 

Unfortunately I had to come out of work two months before the fire and go on benefits due to my youngest son having a lot of problems at school and going through process of getting diagnosed which we have just had of adhd autism social emotional and mental health problems also. 

This has had a massive affect on him. 

Any information or sign post as to where I go from here or if I even have a claim would be great. 

The fire service have confirmed the fire was from the air fryer it was at the front and not by the plug. 

Was always clean and o it had it for 5 months. 

Thanks 

huckster

Yes Solicitors may help you. On a no win no fee basis.  But they will probably want fire report or evidence that the fire was due to faulty product.

DullGreyGuy

huckster said:

Yes Solicitors may help you. On a no win no fee basis.  But they will probably want fire report or evidence that the fire was due to faulty product.

What is the ballpark amount you are looking for?

Solicitors costs cannot be recovered from the other side in small track cases which are for claims up to £10,000 but can be higher as there are no injuries involved. As such there will be far fewer law firms willing to consider conditional funding (aka no win, no fee) - with injury cases (exc whiplash from motor accidents) they'll get their 25% from you plus up to a grand or so from the other side.

As this isnt an injury case the 25% conditional funding cap wont apply so be aware of what you are signing up to as you may find the lawyer is the only one that wins.

The idea of small track is that you arent supposed to need a solicitor, which is why their fees are excluded, however the reality is that it is an advantage to have one unless you have the time to invest and gain an understanding of the whole legal process. There are plenty of cases on here of people winning without solicitors but there are also cases of people having matters thrown out because of basic mistakes they made that no solicitor would have. 

A lot is going to come down to the fire report and personally, I wouldnt have massively high hopes unless you are just wanting a token recognition payment. Most fire reports I've seen have been very basic and just stated where the fire started without really saying if it was a faulty good, miss-used/poorly maintained goods etc