Who’s liable?

[Drawweight]

My mate had his car pinched last week.

He dropped it off at a garage earlier in the morning to get some work done on it and put the keys though the letterbox. Just your average aluminium glazed door.

Along comes someone who removes/breaks the bottom panel of the door, takes the keys and the car is gone.

The garage is denying any responsibility although my mate has heard this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Or is in fact my mate in trouble with his own insurance company because he gave the thief access to his keys?

[Pit Pony]

He didn't give the thief access to the keys. They broke in and stole the keys.

I would have thought that the garage is liable as that's what they tell custoners to do. And once theyve done that the keys are in thier care.

Interested to see what happens.

[alabbasi]

Garage is liable if they put a drop box for customers to leave keys. It's on their property and it's their process. You'll probably have to file through your insurance company. When you tell them what happened, they'll likely recover the money from their insurance. There's no sense knocking heads with them directly.

[Hungrymc]

I would expect they have a ‘vehicles left at owners risk’ thing going on? How legitimate / Enforceable that is I have no idea.

[vonhosen]

Can't see that the garage have been negligent.
Can't see that the mate will be in trouble with his insurance company.
Make a theft claim on insurance.

[MB140]

Slightly different but I’m sure there was a thread on here a while back where someone left his car at a garage for work.

Garage went up in flames due to some careless welding. Someone asked the same question as the op here if the garage was liable.

Sure the person in this instance ended up claiming of their own insurance as a no fault claim. I would try and dig out the thread but in my iPhone the pistonheads search facility seems to not work.