Move/Transport company damaging furniture

[WiseGreenHiker]

Hi all,

I hope this is the right place for this sort of thing, just looking for a bit of advice on my issue.

Essentially, we bought a piece of antique furniture privately from someone fairly local and paid in cash. We engaged the services of a moving company, they confirmed to us that they had insurance in an email (although we did not get anything specific policy wise) and the agreed service was that they would dismantle the item, transport it to our house and then re-assemble in a place of our choosing.

When they got to our house, they carried each piece of the item upstairs to our bedroom and began to assemble the item. My partner was in the room with them at the time and witnessed them drop the wardrobe door (which was mainly made of glass) against our bed frame where it smashed and covered our bed in tiny shards of broken glass. Obviously there's significant damage to the door here, the glass had smashed and the impact had damaged some of the timber frame too.

They didn't apologise, they wouldn't even look at us, they picked up their tools, got in their van and drove away... (We reported this to the head office of the company by phone and email pretty much immediately).

The company have come back to us and pretty much just lied about the whole thing, saying there was an unforeseen defect with the door (There was indeed a significant defect with the door after they had smashed it on the floor... sigh) and that accidents happen. They offered us £100 for our trouble, which we refused.

We're currently gathering quotes for a proper repair to the door and our plan would be to lodge a small claims case in court if they won't pay. This is where my knowledge of what I can/can't do falls down:

1. If they offer to fix it, do I have to accept that? (I frankly do not trust them to do a good job or find someone who will do a good job)
2. My plan was to gather some quotes together, choose the one I thought was the best (does it have to be cheapest?), pay for the repair out of my own pocket, then ask them for reimbursement by email. If they refuse, I was going to notify them I would be lodging a claim.
3. What kind of "proof" do you need in a small claim? I have a video/pictures of a room full of broken glass and 3 of the movers stood holding the wardrobe during assembly. My partner was present when it was broken and saw the whole thing, but it would be her word only. I've also got some doorbell footage of them carrying the pieces in (they were all glass panels, they weren't covered, they didn't look like they were taking much care etc...)

I think that's everything, I'm a bit sceptical they'll even bother paying if we take them to court anyway. They weren't massively cheap but in retrospect they seem like the sort of company who could just disappear and pop back up with a new name... It's sort of the principle anyway, the movers were so unapologetic and rude and that made it waaaaaay more annoying. Then the response denying our version of events was just salt in the wound.
Not sure if relevant but initial feeling on the cost of repair will be about £700.

Thanks

1. No, you don't have to accept their offer to fix it.
2. You may struggle to claim more than the cheapest quote from them unless you can show good reasons why the cheapest quote was inadequate (e.g. it didn't cover fixing all the damage).
3. This isn't a criminal case. You don't have to prove that your case beyond reasonable doubt. You need enough evidence to convince the court that, on the balance of probabilities, your version of events is correct.