Car damaged - Am I entitled to claim?

oddone

(Hope this is in the right spot....)

Basically I live in a built up residential housing area, the area is a disc parking zone with a number of public spaces just like any street, I am permitted
to park in a number of zones nearby due to being a local long term resident.

Last night I parked my car on the corner of the street. There is some construction work being carried out on the (3 storey) buildings beside where the car was parked and there is scaffolding erected, there has been a large timber walkway put up for pedestrians and I presume to act as a barrier between the buildings and the road.

When I came out to the car this morning there was debris all around the car and over night a number of roof tiles or at least parts of tiles (it seems they are repairing a roof which was damaged by fire) had fallen and some had struck my car. I have a number of small but nasty scratches to my paintwork and one serious dent in the roof that I can see. :mad:

I took a quick video of it with the camera fone on my mobile phone but it's pretty lousy quality. I realise it might be hard to prove anything as a result.
There were no workers on site or anyone for me to approach and as I was on the way to work I had no choice but to drive away.

So is there any point in following this up? Would I have a claim against the building contractor or the proprietor of the building (possibly the local authority) ?

I have never made a claim in my life and if it was completely at my risk
parking the car there then I can take it on the chin, there are no warning signs or anything to warn of possible damage if parking there or anything along those lines.

If a pedestrian had been walking along, and kids use the route regularly on the way to school, I dare say someone could have been seriously injured, these are jagged roof slates and debris falling from a fairly tall building.

I am just pissed off because I try to mind my car as best I can and this is something I had no control over.

Would appreciate any advice on the matter. Cheers.

L1011

You'd be entitled to claim against the contractor(s insurers, more likely) if you could prove what caused the damage.

PeakOutput

you might be able to claim but you would have to prove negligence

your best bet is to fix the damage under your own insurance and then get your insurance company to claim for their money back off the construction company

if they get it back your bonus will not be affected in anyway and they will have the hassle of possibly dealing with solicitors letters from the construction company instead of you

charlesD

It seems like the hard part is going to be proving that it was in fact the result of the construction/fire.

One option, which albeit rather time consuming, that might be effective would be to discreetly spend some time filming the workers or the site, until you can show the tiles being thrown off or falling off.

I am not sure if this would even hold up, but it seems that if you could show that there were no warning signs up and that tiles were in fact falling off, it might be enough to pressure the building owner or the contractor to pay for the damage. I would of course recommend getting some second opinions, because I am in no way an expert in this matter.

oddone

Thanks for the replies folks.

Esel

charlesD wrote: »

One option, which albeit rather time consuming, that might be effective would be to discreetly spend some time filming the workers or the site, until you can show the tiles being thrown off or falling off.

Waste of time, no? The damage happened overnight, and was probably due to wind dislodging rubble from the building.

OP: Imo you should have approached the foreman/architect on the site asap. You should still do so. This won't be the first time something like this has happened, and they should have insurance.

charlesD

esel wrote: »

Waste of time, no? The damage happened overnight, and was probably due to wind dislodging rubble from the building.

I never said it was a waste of time. I just said it might be time consuming, because it could mean taking a morning or afternoon off from work.