Wibu to complain about neighbours wood?

[pickledegg101]

Not that kind of wood

NC as outing

So last night super bad wind, storm Francis etc. next door neighbor is currently making some kind of out building in the garden and left some thin planks of wood on his driveway (looks like wooden cladding for the roof when it's finished)

Over night the wind made the wood fly about and this wood has damaged both mine and DHs car. We have it on CCTV

The wood has caused some pretty big scratches on DHs car and one small but still noticeable scratch on mine

Would it be unreasonable to mention this to them and see if they would contribute to the repairs? I have to live next to them for the next 5-10 years so don't want to ask if it's a CF thing to do

To add they are currently financially struggling, she has lost her job, 4 kids, his job has restricted overtime so they aren't in the best financial position however the scratches will cost DH over £600 to get out as it's an expensive car

@NikeDeLaSwoosh

We all paid our own excesses

Why on earth did you do that?

I have to say that there must be more to this than you are seeing.

How else would we submit a claim to our insurance ?

The tree owner offered to pay everyone back, I don’t know how many people took him up on that

It was in the local paper, fire engines, police etc

I was most upset that it squashed my wheelie bin

Argh this bloody phone! A gesture of good will!

I would just knock, tell them their wood has damaged your car and it's all on CCTV, and ask them to let you know how they'd like to sort out the damage.

The planks should have been secured, there were plenty of weather warnings this week about winds up to 70 mph.

Tell the neighbours that you’ll be going through your car insurance for the damages.Good that you have cctv evidence.
Their finances are not your problem.

We once broke windscreens of neighbours cars (DH breaking up some stones with a lump hammer)

We paid to get windscreens replaced. Cost a few hundred. Neighbourly relations not damaged.

I also would knock, politely tell them that their unsecured wood damaged your car, and ask them for their insurance details.

We asked insurance when we had a large leaning tree in our back garden.
All insurances said it would be their own I surance not ours if it fell on their property.

It's an insurance claim, surely?

I wouldn't ask them to cough up directly as they're clearly in no position to do so, but there's no reason on earth I wouldn't go through insurance.

How many panels is it? If it’s a few scratches then I can’t see it being £600.
My partner does car bodywork for a living and it would need to be a lot of work/panels for £600

@Potterpotterpotter

How many panels is it? If it’s a few scratches then I can’t see it being £600. My partner does car bodywork for a living and it would need to be a lot of work/panels for £600

There is damage to 4 panels, two panels are really damaged (so not just scratches a dent with a deep scratch in the middle of it) and the other two are mostly scratches

Ask for their insurance details, if they have public liability cover under their housing policy then it should cover it.

All the posters glibly asserting the neighbours insurance will suck it up are rather missing the point that on the face of it, it's the neighbours negligence that contributed to the damage. Which means their insurers might simply refute the claim on that basis. Even if they do pay out (and there's no legal obligation on them, unlike a motor insurance claim) they might then sue the neighbours to recover their losses. They are, after all, commercial operations, not charities. I can't see many insurance company shareholders being thrilled at too many "goodwill gesture" payments that come straight off their dividends.

It happened to us and we paid for it to be fixed, neighbour didn't want to claim on her insurance and the initial quote was under her excess. She then got loads of extra work done which wasn't due to the planks and tried to get us to pay for it, which we didn't. 🙄

I'd speak to them first up and see what they say, we went straight round and told them about the damage and offered to sort it out.

I don't know how some people's neighbours insurance paid out. We had a tree that fell on a neighbours roof. Our insurance said not our issue he had to claim on his

@Potterpotterpotter

My car has just come back from the body shop. £2,500 for 2 dents on one panel and a replacement headlamp unit. Luckily the other party's insurance paid.