To press charges - am furious with neighbour

[Cardent]

OK, my car has been badly damaged while parked outside my house.my a drunken neighbour who break danced on it. We have him on cctv as clear as daylight, no arguing that it's him.

He's done nearly 1k worth of damage. He was very drunk.

He says he'll pay but can only do £100 a month due to losing his job and being on universal credit. I'm not sure whether to trust him or not.

But the alternative is I go through my insurance and lose my £300 excess. I'm so close to pressing charges for criminal damage, not sure if the courts would make him pay?

@safariboot

You probably have to report the incident to your insurance anyway whether or not you claim. If you do claim, chances are your insurer will require you report the crime to the police. So you may as well do that now.

This - not disclosing damage of this sort and trying to get money cash in hand may invalidate your insurance.

Flippi. Hell - How bloody annoying...

What a pain in the arse for you 😡😡

I'd definitely get advice from your insurers.

I think the best way forward is to ask him to pay your excess OP. You are far more likely to get £300 off him than £1,000.

I don’t think this automatically disqualifies you from your NCB, but if it does then it’s just one of those shitty things that happen unfortunately, it sucks OP because it wasn’t your fault, but sometimes shit things happen beyond our control.

You don’t get to decide on charges being pressed.

I would go through your insurance company, I wouldn’t be surprised if they required a police a reference number.

Even without your update, I knew he wouldn’t pay a penny.

Venn diagram of people who get drunk and trash other people’s cars, and those who responsibly make reparations...

Claim on the insurance, and look into whether you can use Small Claims for the £300.

Unless you’d lose a lot of NCB, in which case, sadly I’d only repair that which was needed to make it safely drive-able.

Definitely police.

You poor thing - what an arsehole!!!

I have name changed for this because it would out me, but if you go through your insurers be aware that they have a very black and white system for deciding "fault" ie they claimed money from an another insurer or they had to pay out themselves. Even though you were not responsible for this and your no-claims bonus is protected you will see a hike in your premium next year if they cannot get money from your neighbour. It goes down as your fault.

My car was parked near a primary school whilst I collected my children when I and several other cars were "hit" by a runaway horse dragging an upturned trap. It damaged 10+ other cars. The police were called out as the owners caught up with the horse and then tried to leg it without providing any details and it got very nasty.

As the owners hadn't got any money and the horse was not "insured" all of us were appalled to discover that it goes down as us being "at fault" as they could not claim the money back. This stayed with me for years and pissed me off to no end. I wish I had just forked for the damage as overall that was cheaper than the more expensive premiums. I had 10+ years protected no claims.

Just call the police . If he is convicted then there will be a compensation order that will be legally binding and so much more likely to get paid. It will take time though- a court case may not happen this year. Your no claims bonus and future premiums will be affected by this so dont forget that if you decide to claim . Try running an insurance quote on a comparison site for your current situation and with a £1000 claim to see the impact

my ncb is protected

I'm not a lawyer but I have been told previously there are implications for recording CCTV even on your own property if you want to be able to use it in court. Something about it being an invasion of people's right to privacy if there isn't a sign stating there is CCTV. So without knowing the technicalities of it, and whether or not he was on your property or your car was maybe on the road, I would strongly advise you to consider that before you start trying to pursue any court action because they could well tell you that the CCTV evidence can't be used as you weren't legally permitted to record in the first place. Bonkers I know, don't shoot the messenger.

Update - he's now saying he won't pay as the price is apparently ridiculous and I could get a whole new car for that! Fuckwit.

Police it is then and small claims court. When a CCJ is on the cards and his ability for any future credit denied he might engage his brain.

I hope the police prosecute, will be an easy conviction as so obviously him on cctv. It's professional business cctv and looks like there was a news cameraman there filming him. He was right under the cctv.

Your ncb may be protected but your Premium may still rise as you will be seen as more risky (keeping the ncb does help though so that may swing it in favour of making a claim)

@heymacaroner

I'm not a lawyer but I have been told previously there are implications for recording CCTV even on your own property if you want to be able to use it in court. Something about it being an invasion of people's right to privacy if there isn't a sign stating there is CCTV. So without knowing the technicalities of it, and whether or not he was on your property or your car was maybe on the road, I would strongly advise you to consider that before you start trying to pursue any court action because they could well tell you that the CCTV evidence can't be used as you weren't legally permitted to record in the first place. Bonkers I know, don't shoot the messenger.

It's a business next to me and they do have signs. So fingers crossed it's ok. He's admitted it to me in texts anyway.

Police and small claims court.

Part of me thinks is it worth claiming..........I tend to keep cars for 10 years and by the time I come to sell it I guess the odd dent won't matter. It's only 3 years old now.

Go through insurance and get him to pay excess?

You can’t press charges. You report the crime to the police and they decide whether to prosecute.

^^
This

Or you can sue him in the small claims court, either through your insurance or not.

Report to the police and your insurance. Sod the rest of it, he's a twat and they need to learn the consequences of their stupidity!

@Cardent

Part of me thinks is it worth claiming..........I tend to keep cars for 10 years and by the time I come to sell it I guess the odd dent won't matter. It's only 3 years old now.

You should be reporting damage to your insurance anyway, even if you decide not to claim.

But I'm not sure why you wouldn't claim? That's the entire point of having insurance, so you don't have to fork out for massive bills like this.

go through the insurance & police
anything else will be very stressfull for you.

If it’s the “odd” dent, then I am now tending to agree with him that £1000 is a complete over statement. Not that he shouldn’t pay... but do you know and trust the people who quoted?
I assumed there was lots of damage - not the odd dent you could live with for 7 years!

I had a 15 year old van resprayed and ALL the work for that including the prep, paint, labour etc was £2500 - and that included taking out 15 years worth of minor dings and scratches and a couple of pretty big dents.

It's criminal damage, so go to the police please. The court will order him to pay restitution and will also punish him.

Depends what outcome you want...

Quickest repair and cheapest for you in short term is report to insurance and police, claim through insurance.

You could go through small claims for your excess- if he doesn’t pay he will end up with CCJ etc. Which means he doesn’t get off Scott free.

I really would go police though, this is criminal damage and court could order him to pay costs- although that will take a long time!

Id go to the police, who the fuck does be think he is DANCING on your car and thinks he can get away with it? Just no!

You need to report to this to your insurance company irrespective, and it is highly likely, given the damage is the result of criminality, that the insurers will want you to go to the police and get a crime number.

This could play quite well for you, you know: if the insurers insist that you report then that takes the issue of whether to 'press charges' or not out of your hands (as others have said, this is strictly out of your hands, but generally the police will take the victim's views into account when making charging decisions)

If you decided to trust he’ll pay you and then all of a sudden he doesn’t you can’t then decide to go through insurance. I believe you have to report it to them within so many days or cannot make a claim