Friend borrowed bike and it got damaged, can I force him to pay?

[RedSauceSpaghetti]

Last summer I lent my bike to a friend for him to get to a new job (he can't drive). I wasn't using it at the time so was happy for him to keep it as long as that remained the case. We agreed that if it got stolen/damaged on his watch, he'd sort it out and pay for repairs/replacement.

4 months later he let me know he'd stupidly left it in the centre of town for several nights and several parts have been taken and damage done. It will cost £250 to repair. He is refusing to pay this as he has since become abusive to his GF (also my friend) which I took her side on (though I've never been nasty about it/had a confrontation about it with him).

When the damages first happened, he said he would take care of it and not to worry. He's gone back on that since.

If i pay for the repair of the bike am I able to recoup the costs of it through small claims?

Thanks in advance for any advice. I will respond as regularly as I can but I'm at hospital with my 4yo who has a brain tumour at the moment so it may be a bit patchy.

Do you have anything in writing? Even text messages?

Given that a condition of the "hire" was he pays for damage then you will be able to recover the cost.

Yes I have texts between me and him and also between ex-GF and me on his behalf (where its clear they've been discussing it/he is in the room discussing it right now)

Do I need to give him notice to pay for it first? And would that need to go through a lawyer or is a text OK?

I feel guilty not giving him notice as he isn't doing brilliant financially but this happened months ago and, frankly, we are facing our own financial issues at the moment and I don't want to have this constantly in the back of my mind when I have a thousand other things to deal with.

You need to send a letter before action setting out the facts, stating how much he owes you and how you have arrived at that figure, including copies of any key documents you will use to support your case and giving him a reasonable deadline to respond (usually 28 days). Make it clear that you will take legal action without further notice if he fails to respond satisfactorily. This will be a small claim. You don't need a lawyer.

@prh47bridge thank you for that. Can I clarify what 'respond' means? He has form for sending many many nasty texts when he is annoyed (like, a few hundred over an hour or two) so I've blocked him on my phone more recently. I'm reluctant to unblock him as this is exactly the type of reaction I am anticipating. Or is a 'response' a transfer of funds ahead of taking legal action? (He already has my bank details from a while back when he send me some money owed for something else). I have moved house since I last spoke to him so I guess I'd need to give him our new address if I don't want him contacting me by phone?

You can still take legal action if his response is unsatisfactory. So if he responds with a tirade of abuse, you can start legal action. If he responds by paying the money he owes you won't need to take legal action. If he responds by making an offer to settle, you will have to consider whether the offer is acceptable and, if not, possibly make a counter-proposal.

Have you got someone who will be willing to mediate? You can state due to previous abuse via text messages, all correspondence will be through x person at x number. He may be less likely to send ridiculous amount of abusive texts to a 3rd party. You definitely don’t need to give him your address. If not I think you should give citizens advice a quick ring to see the best way of going about it, I think he does need a way of contacting you to arrange payment