Driver accepts liability, now denies it.

[B.J.W]

Some advice here much appreciated....

I'll give the abridged version.

My truck is parked outside my house
Neighbour comes over to me

"I'm very sorry, I've just reversed my car into your truck. I'm very sorry, I will pay for damage"

He doesn't want to go through insurance and asks me to get a cash repair quote.

Bill for repair is £1500. When presented with this he flips his lid.

It's now going through insurance. I have a witness who saw him come over to me and heard the conversation with him accepting liability.

I spoke to my insurer today. The other party is now denying he hit my car. I've taken pictures of the damage to his car and mine and set them off to the insurer. His insurer says that they won't accept a 3rd party statement about the overheard conversation. The damage to his car is negligible.

He's now saying that I'm harassing him and that he's scared to take his kids to the car. I haven't spoken to him since the incident, other than today when he smiled and waved at us when he drove up.

I'm at my wits end! Any thoughts on next steps?

[B.J.W]

I can't understand why his insurer won't accept the statement of a independent witness who heard him accepting full liability. I thought this would be ironclad!
My insurer is trying to be helpful, but they say there is nothing they can do!

[B.J.W]

calibrax said:

First you say he hit your truck, then you say he denies hitting your car. Which is it, car or truck?

It's a Navarra.(car/truck)

[B.J.W]

HenryJM said:

A truly independent witness is one neither of you knew beforehand, does this witness qualify or is a relative or friend?

Next door neighbour - we are on 'hello' terms, but not friends

[B.J.W]

Jasandjules said:

PurpleMoonlight said:

Issue a county court claim against him and see if his insurers are still as keen to deny liability.

Write to them first setting out that a third party (I trust independent?) witness will be accepted by a court and accordingly you invite them to settle the claim in full, else you will have no alternative but to issue a claim.

That's really helpful. Thank you

[B.J.W]

pork911 said:

B.J.W said:

Some advice here much appreciated....

I'll give the abridged version.

My truck is parked outside my house
Neighbour comes over to me

"I'm very sorry, I've just reversed my car into your truck. I'm very sorry, I will pay for damage"

He doesn't want to go through insurance and asks me to get a cash repair quote.

Bill for repair is £1500. When presented with this he flips his lid.

It's now going through insurance. I have a witness who saw him come over to me and heard the conversation with him accepting liability.

I spoke to my insurer today. The other party is now denying he hit my car. I've taken pictures of the damage to his car and mine and set them off to the insurer. His insurer says that they won't accept a 3rd party statement about the overheard conversation. The damage to his car is negligible.

He's now saying that I'm harassing him and that he's scared to take his kids to the car. I haven't spoken to him since the incident, other than today when he smiled and waved at us when he drove up.

I'm at my wits end! Any thoughts on next steps?

Are you fully comp? Is the truck driveable?

Since you have presumably given as much information in your OP to your insurer, the photos and the witnesses' details you should respond to any of your insurer's requests, chill and ignore the guy who hit your truck.

Most of the posts in this thread are absolute bks.

Hi. The truck is drive-able.

I have pictures of damage to my vehicle and damage to his. The independent party sent a written statement to the insurer - they are not interested.

I attempted to have a quiet word with him yesterday to establish why he is now denying it. He started to shout at me, claiming I was harassing him and that he is now scared to take his children out to the car because of me!

This is the same person who accused other neighbours of racial abuse when they asked why he had complained about their dog barking.

Equally, this is the same person who was abusive to an elderly lady who lives next door to him when she said no to him asking if he could park his car on her property because he didn't want to leave it on the road.

I might also add that he reversed into my fiancées car on 2 occasions before I moved in.

He thinks he can say and do what he pleases.

[B.J.W]

LoonR1 said:

Oh good. This is more of a "bloody immigrants" thread rather than an insurance one. I'm out, good luck resolving it.

Hang on a bloody second!

I answered a perfectly reasonable question about having a quiet word with him with a few examples of why that particular course of action was not likely to be successful.

His race/religion has NOTHING to do with it - YOU are the one that has highlighted this.

If it was I would have highlighted it in my opening post. I didn't do this!

All I want is some thoughts on whether I am doing anything wrong in dealing with a liar who thinks he can get away with damaging people's property. You appear to be the one with the agenda, in which case you are welcome to post elsewhere - which is a shame because your advice was helpful

Edited by B.J.W on Wednesday 9th July 09:09

[B.J.W]

LoonR1 said:

It's of no use. Why do you continue to post in the style of a solicitor? Your other half is one but a corporate lawyer doing M&As and you're a salesman selling software to legal practices. At least be honest about what you're posting.

The next door neighbour's evidence is worthless.

Why is it considered useless? I'm assuming that a 3rd party has to physically witness a collision?

Is my only available course of action to rely on an independent assessor examining the damage to both vehicles?

[B.J.W]

pork911 said:

Ignore the guy he's not going to change his mind and further interaction is just going to make it look like a neighbourly dispute.


Which insurer is not interested in what the neighbour heard?


That neighbour is an entirely valid witness and are not worthless. They may or may not make a difference depending on how the three of you come across and any other evidence.

His insurer is not accepting the witness statement.

[B.J.W]

pork911 said:

And what does your insurer say?

They are still going through the tick box process.

The other insurer is sending out an assessor to look at the damage to both vehicles. A call will then be made on whether to proceed. I immediately took photos of his car and have sent them to my insurer. These have been passed on to the other insurer.

[B.J.W]

Hackney said:

B.J.W said:

I might also add that he reversed into my fiancées car on 2 occasions before I moved in.

Did any of these claims go through your fiancee's insurance? Was he as obstructive in those cases? If so, can those details be passed to your insurance company to help them to decide to pursue?
At the very least it goes to show he can't drive very well.

No. She had a beat up old fiesta at the time and the damage was cosmetic.

[B.J.W]

LoonR1 said:

TankRizzo said:

You also basically said that the OP was anti-immigrant with little reason, pissing him off in the process needlessly. Your advice is often great but I cannot bend my head around the severely poor attitude you have. Working in the industry does not give you carte blanche to be a massive prick to everyone.

I'm a username on here and nothing else. I'm also fed up with the amount of references being made both explicit and implicit around the race, creed, culture, religion of those who have allegedly done wrong to a PH member. I do. to believe that the reference to any of those would be made if the person was a white Caucasian, so why is it made for others?

3 out of 3 insurance threads have made reference to the ethnicity of others and I despise that stereotyping. So is that me being a "prick" quite possibly, but as you've chosen to abuse me then you can take a long hard look in the mirror.

I didn't make reference to his race. I was asked the question "why don't you have a quiet word with him?"

I was simply trying to state that a neighbour had tried to have a quiet word with him over another matter and that the other party (who drove into my car) accused him of racial abuse. The last thing I want to do is to open myself up to further hassle from this individual (who already knows' he's in the wrong).
When I spoke to him after he initially changed his mind he became abusive towards me and accused me of harassing him.

Again (and please can we put this side issue to bed), his race is completely irrelevant.

All I need to know is.....

1) if the chap appraising the cars decides that the other party is not liable (they believe his story) am I just going to have to suck it up, or does the eye witness statement about her hearing him admit it provide me with a strong position to take it further?

Once again, thanks for the advice so far.

[B.J.W]

I've spoken to my insurer this morning. They've said that the other party's insurer have agreed to send an independent assessor to examine the rear of the offending vehicle, though they suspect that the response of the other party will likely be along the lines of "it was there before the alleged incident"

It is possible that the assessor may well correlate the damage to my vehicle with the damage to his, but I've been advised that I'm on a sticky wicket.

I've sought some legal advice and the chances of me getting anything are, at best 50:50.
Either way, it would need to go through small claims which would mean that I would have to repair the vehicle myself.

I own 2 other vehicles, so if I claim on the insurance (I have my wedding in September and simply don't have that amount of cash lying around at the moment), it's likely that my premiums will rise across the board.

This leaves me with a bill for £1500, I've shelled out £300 for a CCTV system as the only way of moderately covering my back when he does it again, and a 'neighbour' across the road who shouts at me in the street whenever I am out the front, accusing me of harassing him and the fact that he is scared to let his children leave the house. It's absolutely fking ridiculous. I'm the completely innocent party here and there is nothing I can do about it if the assessor finds in the defendants favour.

I'm just a tad livid at the moment.....

[B.J.W]

LoonR1 said:

Jasandjules said:

You can lodge a claim yourself in the county court if you so wish.

You can also use three quotes for repairs and sue for the average figure, before getting the repairs done.

How will he prove the other person did it?

Exactly. My word against his. He will say the damage to the back of his car was already present.

[B.J.W]

A quick update on this.....

The TP's assessor turned up today. He advised me that he'd spoken to the TP and that he is continuing to deny anything happened. He asked for my account, took pictures if my car, took pictures of the TP's and measured the height of the damage to both vehicles - both 18 inches. His exact words "what a coincidence"

He's spoken in person to my witness and took her details.

Obviously, he's wasn't going to give anything way, but he did say that he was going to go back and speak to the TP. As we were outside talking the TP was standing by his car. My witness has also advised me that the TP has been verbally abusive to her since the incident (he is aware she is the witness). I've had no further contact with him since he accused me if harassing him. I've taken my fiancé's advice and ignore him (he's had a pop on a couple of occasions when he's seen me - evidently trying to provoke a reaction)

Fingers crossed for positive feedback!

[B.J.W]

Well.......

I have had a call from the TP's insurer today.

They have agreed to cover the full cost of the repair to my vehicle!

Apparently, when the assessor spoke to the TP for the second time after inspecting the vehicles, the TP changed his story and said that it was a friend of his that had hit my truck. When asked to provide the details of the friend the TP said he didn't know them!

On this basis, they said that they had reason to believe that the TP was lying and that they wanted to mitigate costs (I advised them that I was prepared to take this to court)

I suspect that there is a lot more to this than meets the eye - I'm still of the opinion that whilst the car is insured, the TP is not the driver on the policy. That's for the police to investigate...

[B.J.W]

alcad said:

I'm glad it's getting sorted now.

I have just realised in reading this thread that I know who you are. I'm the guy who lives 2 doors up from you (not the neighbour in question relating to this incident BTW!), you were chatting to me in the street about this the other day.

So a online hello from me and I love the bright yellow Westfield, Sounds good too!

Alan.

Small World - a fellow Pher living next door but one to me

Thanks Alan. It's been a stressful few weeks, but the right result.

Enjoying the Westfield - the V8 has a serious drink problem though!