To think we shouldn’t be liable for this?

[Maneandfeathers]

Quick backstory.
Parked our car legally outside of our house. No lines or anything like that. Been parked there for years never any problem. We don’t have a driveway.

Neighbour at the other end of the street drives along our street blind drunk, swerves, hits our car almost writing it off, continues on his merry way, sort of parks up outside his house and gets home.

I witness this and confront him. He denies hitting our car despite me seeing him do it. Then he says we have obviously parked badly. He is very drunk, stinks of alcohol and police are called. Arrest him and he’s over the limit etc. We get his insurance details and our car is fixed to a tune of £6000. I don’t think much more of it and presume insurance are dealing with it.

6 MONTHS later I receive a letter to state he has denied hitting our car and we are now liable for the costs of the damage plus the hire car we were forced to have because he had smashed up ours while drink driving.
He is now denying the whole incident and apparently the police report is unrelated as they didn’t see him drive the car

How can this possibly be fair
We have spoken to our insurance company but apparently there is no proof despite the arrest and the photos of our car and his which was also damaged. He is denying it ever happening.
We stand to loose all of our no claims bonus also. We can’t really afford to have anything else go up and are struggling as it is

Would I be unreasonable to knock on his door and call him a shitty drunken arsehole for this

The police barely gave a shit to be honest. They came and arrested him that’s it. They took no samples of paint or anything and surely now it’s been months and months it’s impossible to prove? Most of the damage to his was on the plastic bumper and massive grill and only a few scratches on the paint

Surely if you’re deemed liable then you’ll just lose your no claims and excess? I’ve never heard of an insurer trying to claim the cost of repairs back from a policy holder..

Who called the police? If you called them telling them he hit your car, isn't that evidence of the incident? You would hardly have a prang in the supermarket and them wait for a neighbour to drive home (possibly drunk) and then call them. If they prosecuted him for drink driving after your call, then the police must agree he drove down your street minutes before. If your insurance are making you pay ,£6k I think you should get 30mins with a good solicitor.
A letter from him may turn it around.

Well his insurers are refusing to pay. Ours are saying that they will have to claim it via our insurance minus the hire car costs and excess.

So looks like we may have to pay hundreds plus loose our no claims?

How is that fair when I was on the sofa watching tv at the time

Our excess is a few hundred and we will loose all of our no claims which will put our renewal up by about £50 per month. We can’t afford to suck that up.

We called the police.

Your insurer will definitely try their best to make a claim on your neighbour’s insurance and will generally go to great lengths on your behalf because they don’t want to pay the cost of repairing your car. If they haven’t got enough evidence to claim against his insurance it can’t cost you any more than your excess. Unfortunately you will probably lose your no claims bonus unless you have it protected and a probably slight rise in your premium. It’s annoying but without cctv or a dash cam that is motion activated, it is one of the risks of on street parking.

I think you should fight it - there is evidence - your own eye witness evidence of the event, your photographs on the night, your call to the police and explanation to them of what happened, the fact that they arrested him and found him to be drunk. They did not see him drink driving, but they did see him drunk and you saw him driving and witnessed the damage to your vehicle. So it would be possible to lose, but only if your evidence is not believed. As you were not drunk and there is proof (police report) that he was, I think you are going to be the more credible witness. The police don't give a shit because they knew your insurance will deal with it as a civil matter and it would be too much effort for too little reward to investigate properly - but it doesn't mean it didn't happen exactly as you say it did.

Have you asked your other neighbours if they witnessed the crash?

I would not rely on the police, about 15 years ago, the police knocked on my flat to let me know they had caught someone breaking into my car (he was apparently inside the car when they can’t him) . He had previously broken into several cars in the same car park and area. The policeman said to me that it wasn’t worth the paperwork to charge him so didn’t bother. It meant I lost ncd and had to pay the excess 🤬🤬🤬🤯

For fucks sake. What's the point in sending people to learn about forensics and other crime related things when it's not used. This is a line example of when it would have been useful both for properly charging a drunk driver and for getting the insurance sorted properly. PP said testing the paint on the bumper. Simple enough so why couldn't they do it.

You said you took photos of damage to your car and his car from the night it happened. Usually, this should be enough for most insurance adjusters to figure out exactly what happened, so I don’t know why your insurance company is plying with him. I can only assume it’s because they assume proving it in court will cost more than letting the matter go. BUT you’ve both made statements - why the hell are they just believing him and not you? Raise a fuss and say you’re willing to go on record, make a legal statement that you witnessed him doing this, have it notarized, hell, even take a lie detector test (I’m sure they would never do that over £6000 but still), etc. It sounds as though he’s lied to the insurance company, which is an arsehole move, but maybe he’d be more afraid to lie in court/ to law enforcement? What’s happening right now is that your insurance company is saying that it’s not worth dealing with any of this because they’ve already paid the money, and they don’t care about you losing your NCB. You have to make it more painful for them to ignore it than do something about it. And they’re full of shite if they say there’s nothing they can do if he says he “didnt do it” - if that were true, no one who leaves an accident scene would ever be caught. They could just say, “Wasn’t me!” and the case would be closed.

For anyone reading this, and OP - unfortunately, these arsehats walk among us, so to make your life easier, hopefully, in the future, consider a dash cam. They have many that are cheap as chips, and I believe they have motion-activated ones so they will catch someone hitting your parked car. I’m so sorry, OP, as I’m sure this is VERY stressful, and good luck!

Further to my point above that the evidence on your car is destroyed. I would have thought the insurance company should tell you prior to repairs the other car owner is denying fault. Didn’t they do this?

Unfortunately you will be liable for any cars you hired if you have a policy that does not include a courtesy car.

Just thought- what did police charge him for it’s? Was it drunk driving??? As shows he was driving that night- please say you took photos that night as well?

You should be able to get that as evidence

If you do end up going round to talk to him, which I would be tempted to do, make sure you are discreetly recording the conversation. He may well give himself away at some point, then you have evidence.

So we phoned our insurance company on the night and gave his details as supplied to us by the police. The police emailed me his name/address/reg plate etc (not like I didn’t know it but hey!)

Our insurance then contacted his and someone rang us the next day to arrange a hire car. Stupidly we didn’t ask which company arranged it, I presumed his but maybe it was ours? I’m not all that sure and need to ring them to confirm.

I made statements to the police and so did DH.

No neibours witnessed the incident. Our NDN happened to appear walking home about 30mins asking how it happened so I know he wasn’t in. The only other neibours who could have seen were away on holiday that day- I was looking after their cat so know they weren’t there!

I am willing to go to court...in fact I want to just to prove to the awful specimen that he can’t get away with it that easily.

He actually cried to us on the night while waiting for the police that he was under a lot of stress etc then has the cheek to do this. This is all on statement. The policeman had body cams while interviewing us so surely showing that in court would prove that I wouldn’t be phoning them out at 9pm at night with a crying baby and in my pjs for no good reason.

Maybe he hasn’t informed his insurance company of the fact he was actually drunk driving? Or perhaps they couldn’t prove it as he was out of the car by the time the police arrived so he could technically say he wasn’t driving it?

If he was arrested, surely there's a police record which has been available to the insurance companies, and therefore his insurance company must know that he was drunk, regardless of whether or not he has told them..?

Sorry for some reason I can’t seem to spell neighbour tonight

Mrs, all I know is that he was arrested and taken away by a police car. 3 separate cars turned up and blocked him in.

Shortly after a police woman came to our home to take a statement and said he had been breathalised over the limit.

However, he is still driving around without a care in the world!

Maybe he has only just realised that his insurance won't cover it if he was driving drunk... So is now denying it as he'd have to pay out of his own pocket?

I was about to ask about his insurance, would he actually be covered if he was drunk?

honestly, go for it OP, it doesn't seem all that difficult - concrete evidence he was drunk that night, your eye witness testimony, the damage to your vehicle and the damage to his vehicle, plus the police evidence from the evening evidencing what you said and what they saw. All adds up, his story doesn't.

The police may have had to let him go without charge. Think it’s pretty hard for them to prove he was driving if they didn’t see him. You can’t charge someone for drink driving if they are sat on the settee at home just because they have damage to their car.

Seems a bit odd that they would just say "Right, he says it never happened so give us the money back".

I suspect that they are hoping you will just pay up so they dont have to go through the palaver of going to court. I would be contacting them saying that you want to go to court and of course take photos of the damage on his car.

You can’t charge someone for drink driving if they are sat on the settee at home just because they have damage to their car

Actually they can. The first thing the police will have done is feel the bonnet of his car, they will seek witness statements and the "hip flask" defence has no chance.

First thing to do is call the police and find out if he has been charged with anything. He could have been charged and banned but is ignoring it, happens all the time.