Delivery person damaged my gate

[ToDoListAddict]

A local handy mag was delivered to my house. On my ring doorbell I can see the guy (not a post man - a distributor or whatever they are called) pushing open my gate with such force that it pulled the top mechanism out of the brick pillar, and damaged the brick work of the pillar the gate was attached too.
He knows he's done it as he surveys it and then walks off saying to the person he's with something like "that gate is falling apart".

I've never had this situation before, so just asking if this is just something that happens and I have to pay to repair it as it's my property?
Or should the person who damaged it pay towards it?
I doesn't look like a deliberate act of vandalism, more like he was too heavy handed with the gate.
It seems rude to cause that much damage to a person's property and just walk away but I don't really know the etiquette for this sort of thing?

That's wear and tear not sabotage fix it yourself.

Tbh on this I'd suck it up and be glad no one was hurt if it's that easy to break. Yes, I'd like to think someone would have told you it happened, but you do know about it and said yourself it doesn't look deliberate. It sounds like it was waiting to happen.

Similar scenario for me, but with a letterbox rather than a gate. Back last year an Amazon delivery driver heavy handily squeezed a parcel through my letter box (in an ideal world it was too big to easily go through but he proceeded). He broke the letterbox in the end. I contacted Amazon, with proof and after a few exchanges back and forth they accepted their driver was to blame and were happy to pay to have it repaired. I got a few local quotes of repair, passed it onto them and a day later they bank transferred the cost to me so I could get it sorted and paid for on their behalf.

Honestly if a push (even a hard push) is enough to pull the gate hinge out of brick, that does slightly suggest it was on the verge of coming out already.

I am not sure how you would go about tracking him down or getting him to pay for it anyway.

I think it’s one of those things that’s really annoying but you’re going to have to live with unfortunately. Maybe get a spring on the gate to prevent it being banged against the brick.

Honestly if a push (even a hard push) is enough to pull the gate hinge out of brick, that does slightly suggest it was on the verge of coming out already.

This

Thanks for the replies - seems like it's just one of those things and it's for me to sort out.
I'm still learning the joys of being a home owner 🤣
At least it was the local handy mag he delivered so should find a suitable tradesman in there!

@ToDoListAddict

Thanks for the replies - seems like it's just one of those things and it's for me to sort out. I'm still learning the joys of being a home owner 🤣 At least it was the local handy mag he delivered so should find a suitable tradesman in there!

Maybe they are in cahoots!

I'd stick an small sign on my gate saying to open with care - as he will be back again to re deliver in a month probably!

Sorry but I disagree that its the home owners job or cost to repair in this instance, if the gate was in good working order and he used undue force causing damage it's the company he works for that should be paying for the repair .

You should contact the source of the magazine / item and ask them to repair / pay for the repair to your gate , they should be insured for such events

I had a council refuse lorry back into my drive way and knock down a wall and gatepost , I know it was in very good condition before this happened, I contacted the council ( I have no idea if they owned the lorry or sub contracted the work out ) I had a neighbour witness them knock down the wall , the council ignored my message so after a couple of weeks I messaged them again , they again ignored me so I sent copies of the messages and photos of the damaged wall ( plus a photos of the wall before damage ) to my MP , in less than a week the wall was completely repaired to a decent standard

I don’t know - I think that it’s the delivery guy’s fault because presumably the postman and other delivery people use this gate on a daily basis with no problem. This particular guy was seen using excessive force and broke the gate because of it.

That said op, I think you’re going to have to suck this one up. It’s fairly typical for a minority of people to treat the property of others like this. I’ve owned a house for decades now and this kind of shit happens from time to time. I’ve had bathroom fitters (who have since gone out of business because they were such bastards) who came in, broke my front door locking mechanism (door was about 2 years old, they wanted to put it “on the catch” and I told them this door doesn’t have that facility so they didn’t believe me, fiddled with it until they broke it), shoved litter in my walls instead of putting it in the bin and wrecked a carpet. I replaced all of the above at my own cost. The bathroom was an appalling job and I paid another person £1k over a few years to put it right as I realised bit after bit was wrong. When I tried to contact them re this, I found they’d gone out of business. The snakey guy who ran it has moved and set up a similar business with a different name, no doubt fucking over more people with fake testimonials on his website.

Anyway. Only let people with personal recommendations in your house. I would rather have stuff that doesn’t function than let a non vetted (by people I know and trust) person in ever again.

I think that it’s the delivery guy’s fault because presumably the postman and other delivery people use this gate on a daily basis with no problem. This particular guy was seen using excessive force and broke the gate because of it.

Thing is, at some point the gate reaches the point at which it will break. Before that it was fine and then it wasn't.