Reduced car value after non-fault accident

Spirit16

Our car was crashed into while it was parked at home. Devastating as our car was booked in at a garage next day to sell!!!
We had already been given a value for our car over the phone.
We had the car repaired back to perfect condition and went back to garage to sell.
Because it had been in an accident We were offered £4k less !!!
We will have to claim this loss back as it was not our fault.
Is this something our insurer can do on our behalf in a form of compensation?
 Or do we have to go through the small claims court? 
To determine exact loss in value, do we have to get an independent assessor to confirm value before & after accident or are garage valuations enough?
The only issue with that is, the garage never saw the car on initial valuation. They were going to confirm the exact sell value at our initial appointment before the crash.

DullGreyGuy

Spirit16 said:

Our car was crashed into while it was parked at home. Devastating as our car was booked in at a garage next day to sell!!!
We had already been given a value for our car over the phone.
We had the car repaired back to perfect condition and went back to garage to sell.
Because it had been in an accident We were offered £4k less !!!
We will have to claim this loss back as it was not our fault.
Is this something our insurer can do on our behalf in a form of compensation?
 Or do we have to go through the small claims court? 
To determine exact loss in value, do we have to get an independent assessor to confirm value before & after accident or are garage valuations enough?
The only issue with that is, the garage never saw the car on initial valuation. They were going to confirm the exact sell value at our initial appointment before the crash.

They're taking the !!!!!! out of you by reducing the price, go to somewhere else to sell it.

Your insurers won't cover depreciation and won't agree its depreciated, if you want to attempt to recover it and have legal expenses insurance on your car they should appoint someone to assist in recovering all your uninsured losses. 

The claim against the third party legally speaking is a claim for depreciation, the fact they reimburse the cost of repair is just that repair is considered by the courts an appropriate proxy for the depreciation. As a consequence you can't say it was repaired perfectly but still worth less money. 

In my claims days I paid two depreciation claims, first was on a Rolls Royce where we'd made a conscious decision on reducing repair costs so it wasnt perfect after the repair but their claim for depreciation was vastly less than the cost of replacing all the wood in the car. The second one the person was asking for £30 and so was within our £50 FO money limit and they'd been abnoxious throughout the claim so was happy to see the back of them. 

One of the credit hire companies used to use "independent" engineers that would always stick on a depreciation of 25% of the repair costs, never paid any of them, got treated with court many times, confirmed to them which address to serve papers on us, not one of them did. 

Before going to court you need to speak to your insurers... a claim against one person can only happen once so, for example, if you were to litigate before your insurers have been reimbursed without including their costs in the litigation they wouldn't be able to reclaim their losses and so at best its a fault claim, at worse you have to repay them. 

Car_54

Spirit16 said:

To determine exact loss in value, do we have to get an independent assessor to confirm value before & after accident or are garage valuations enough?

You said you'd had the car "repaired back to perfect condition", so there should be no reduction in value.

The garage only know the car was in an accident because you've told them. If it has been repaired properly no other potential buyer should know.

Herzlos

Why did they drop the offer? Was it because you told them about the accident damage or were they able to see the condition of the car?

If the former, sell it to someone you didn't tell about the damage. It should have been repaired to a suitable quality anyway and they are just chancers.
If the latter, go back to your insurance to get the repair done correctly.

Mildly_Miffed

If the car was repaired to "perfect condition", there's no record of any damage, and nothing to see - the value is unaffected.
(About a third of all brand new cars have bodywork damage rectified before delivery - the buyer is not told, and the vast majority never notice.)

If the repaired damage is visible, then it was a shoddy repair - you should have taken it up with the body shop and insurance when it was done.

If the damage is recorded, then the car must have been written off, so the insurance paid the value in full, less what you bought it back for, so there's no diminuation of value.

Aretnap

Agree with all the above I'm afraid. If the repairs have been done to a good standard then there should be no loss in value. The fact that this particular dealer is trying to fleece you is unfortunate, but not something that can really be laid at the door of your insurer, or the third party. If you try to claim from either they'll probably just tell you to sell the car to someone else. And they'd be right.

Best advice is to tell the dealer where to stick his reduced offer and find another buyer. That might be inconvenient when your already arranged the sale, but inconvenience isn't something that you can easily put a value on or claim for. And if you could put a value on it, it would be nowhere near £4K.

Spirit16

DullGreyGuy said:

Spirit16 said:

Our car was crashed into while it was parked at home. Devastating as our car was booked in at a garage next day to sell!!!
We had already been given a value for our car over the phone.
We had the car repaired back to perfect condition and went back to garage to sell.
Because it had been in an accident We were offered £4k less !!!
We will have to claim this loss back as it was not our fault.
Is this something our insurer can do on our behalf in a form of compensation?
 Or do we have to go through the small claims court? 
To determine exact loss in value, do we have to get an independent assessor to confirm value before & after accident or are garage valuations enough?
The only issue with that is, the garage never saw the car on initial valuation. They were going to confirm the exact sell value at our initial appointment before the crash.

They're taking the !!!!!! out of you by reducing the price, go to somewhere else to sell it.

Your insurers won't cover depreciation and won't agree its depreciated, if you want to attempt to recover it and have legal expenses insurance on your car they should appoint someone to assist in recovering all your uninsured losses. 

The claim against the third party legally speaking is a claim for depreciation, the fact they reimburse the cost of repair is just that repair is considered by the courts an appropriate proxy for the depreciation. As a consequence you can't say it was repaired perfectly but still worth less money. 

In my claims days I paid two depreciation claims, first was on a Rolls Royce where we'd made a conscious decision on reducing repair costs so it wasnt perfect after the repair but their claim for depreciation was vastly less than the cost of replacing all the wood in the car. The second one the person was asking for £30 and so was within our £50 FO money limit and they'd been abnoxious throughout the claim so was happy to see the back of them. 

One of the credit hire companies used to use "independent" engineers that would always stick on a depreciation of 25% of the repair costs, never paid any of them, got treated with court many times, confirmed to them which address to serve papers on us, not one of them did. 

Before going to court you need to speak to your insurers... a claim against one person can only happen once so, for example, if you were to litigate before your insurers have been reimbursed without including their costs in the litigation they wouldn't be able to reclaim their losses and so at best its a fault claim, at worse you have to repay them. 

Thank you so much. Sort of what I already thought. Its just so unfair

Spirit16

Herzlos said:

Why did they drop the offer? Was it because you told them about the accident damage or were they able to see the condition of the car?

If the former, sell it to someone you didn't tell about the damage. It should have been repaired to a suitable quality anyway and they are just chancers.
If the latter, go back to your insurance to get the repair done correctly.

Thank you herzlos. They asked if the car had been in an accident so I thought I had to tell the truth as I wasn't sure if there was a database where the buyer could see if claims made against the car. Now I know there isn't such a database

ThorOdinson

It's not right that you are obliged to lie to reduce the costs for the at fault party. Most buyers would offer less for a car that has been in an accident, and not without good reason.

Desmond_Hume

Not sure what planet the majority of posters are on in here. Nobody is paying top dollar for a damaged repair car, be it done to perfection or not. 

Is it a CAT N now? Did it go through insurance?

I agree it sucks for you but expecting a buyer to pay the same for a damage repaired car as they would a straight one is nuts. 

facade

ThorOdinson said:

It's not right that you are obliged to lie to reduce the costs for the at fault party. Most buyers would offer less for a car that has been in an accident, and not without good reason.

Quite.

Any repair (except paintless dent removal) devalues the car for me, if I'm paying top dollar I want one that has never been crashed.

I know someone is going to say that "properly" repaired cars are just as good as un-crashed ones, and that 2/3 of brand new cars have had repairs after they played bumping cars with them at the port, or they fell off the transporter, but in my personal experience, a repaired car is never as good as un-repaired. (Maybe the bodyshops that do insurance work just don't do "proper" repairs...)

Our cars are keepers, and after a few years, body repairs that were invisible when I bought the car (just after they were done no doubt) always show up. For example, my previous Renault Nissan looked perfect when I bought it, but over the 12 years I had it it became obvious which panels had been resprayed and that a new rear bumper had been fitted.

I suspect that some of the incurable leaks were from hidden seams that popped in the crash that I didn't know about...