Car nicked - lawyer needed!
Discussion
Mods, sorry if this is the wrong forum for this - was not totally sure where to place it!
Long story short but I was having a small dispute over the lady who I rent a garage from. Total disputed amount was approx £200. I went away for two weeks and come back to discover she has emptied the garage, including my car which was just my daily smoker. Total value of stuff removed and seemingly destroyed was around 4-5k! Police say it appears to be a civil matter but they are looking into a couple of details which may lead to a criminal prosecution. However, I want to recover the value of the goods destroyed. I am unsure if this would be covered under property law or a litigation issue. Can anyone here point me in the right direction of a lawyer, possibly but not necessarily no-win-no-fee, who might be able to advise and possibly get involved?
I open this to the all knowing PH massive!
Long story short but I was having a small dispute over the lady who I rent a garage from. Total disputed amount was approx £200. I went away for two weeks and come back to discover she has emptied the garage, including my car which was just my daily smoker. Total value of stuff removed and seemingly destroyed was around 4-5k! Police say it appears to be a civil matter but they are looking into a couple of details which may lead to a criminal prosecution. However, I want to recover the value of the goods destroyed. I am unsure if this would be covered under property law or a litigation issue. Can anyone here point me in the right direction of a lawyer, possibly but not necessarily no-win-no-fee, who might be able to advise and possibly get involved?
I open this to the all knowing PH massive!
The problem is that the car has been crushed! The "lady" decided it had no worth despite knowing nothing at all about cars. She also seems to have destroyed a unused Lotus Esprit S4s zaust, an unused OZ split rim and various other bits and bobs. The Police, even if they did charge her, cannot force her to pay me for the stuff so thus it needs to be a civil action. However, the BiB are looking into a fraud charge oddly. To be fair to them, until the Police got involved I had not had confirmation what had happened, where the car etc ended up, nothing really. I was also given some very good advice by a well-known PH'er who is also a BiB (if you reading this, thanks again!). Even if there is a criminal charge, I still need to go the legal route to recover the value of the goods, hence the need for a lawyer.
So annoying though!
So annoying though!
Apparently she got the car squashed as her son-in-law is a lawyer and wrote a letter saying she could! I am due to see that letter tomorrow.
She did give me 21 days warning in a hand delivered letter but as I was away at the time there was not a lot I could do. To be fair, she did not know I was away. She also claims to have emailed and called me but I have no email, missed call or message from her.
I freely admit I forgot to drop the £200 over but as I normally paid her quarterly I did not remember to pay her before I went, my fault of course. However, to take and destroy £4k + worth of stuff seems to me totally OTT and thus I want to recover a fair percentage of that value. I guess I could go the small claims court route. Any thoughts?
She did give me 21 days warning in a hand delivered letter but as I was away at the time there was not a lot I could do. To be fair, she did not know I was away. She also claims to have emailed and called me but I have no email, missed call or message from her.
I freely admit I forgot to drop the £200 over but as I normally paid her quarterly I did not remember to pay her before I went, my fault of course. However, to take and destroy £4k + worth of stuff seems to me totally OTT and thus I want to recover a fair percentage of that value. I guess I could go the small claims court route. Any thoughts?
Indeed proper legal advice is needed although a trawl of the interweb does seem to indicate I have a very strong case. Just got to find a decent lawyer now so back to the web for that too I guess.
Hopefully will pick up a smoker for a few weeks this week as well - shopping for cars should be fun but this is just a pain!
Hopefully will pick up a smoker for a few weeks this week as well - shopping for cars should be fun but this is just a pain!
As I said, I did forget to pay her and I can understand she is somewhat miffed. In her situation I can see holding the stuff to ransom etc which while might be a bit legally dodgy I think would be fair. Thu I made her a fair offer which included what I felt to be a reasonable sum to compensate her for me being a forgetful.
However, her actions are so OTT as to be nuts!
However, her actions are so OTT as to be nuts!
Ok, to clarify - the debt owed is only for the rent of the garage, nothing else at all and there is no other dispute or indeed connection between her and I.
She did drop a letter through my door giving me 21 days notice and I was indeed out of the country for 2 weeks. As someone said that leaves a week unaccounted for. When I called her on my return she told me about the letter which I then found in a pile of post which I had yet to go through from when I was away. Neither her or I can prove the date it was delivered.
As a little back story - I had said some 3 months ago approx that I no longer wanted the garage but would continue to rent it from her until she or I found a person to take it over. Obviously, I was happy to pay rent over that period assuming that the rent remained the same and that she gave me good notice. To facilitate this, we agreed to stop paying on a monthly basis and to pay a daily rate. This rate was based on a pro-rata rent which was fine. Nothing exists in writing as there was never any contract between us.
She claims to have called and emailed me. She does not have my email address and if she found it somewhere I simply never received her email so I find that somewhat odd. As for phone calls, she claims to have called me, I think it strange I have no missed calls or messages from her.
She took such extreme action for reasons I simply don't understand. The new tenant of the garage is the same chap who removed the car and has yet to start using it, nor was he in any rush to do so. In fact, I understand that she offered him the garage afterwards.
As for the legalities of the car removal and crushing - I understand there was a letter from her lawyer (who is her son-in-law so no cost) but I have not seen it yet.
Both her and her husband have something of a reputation, one I was unaware of, of being fairly unpleasant people to deal with.
All of those of you who have commented that you want more info - fair enough! I think this covers everything but as I am asking for lawyers and of course any advice, please ask away! If my summation above comes across as a little terse it is only as it is meant to be factual and I do infact appreciate all comments and opinions (unless they disagree with me obviously ;-) ).
And what is TWOC?!
She did drop a letter through my door giving me 21 days notice and I was indeed out of the country for 2 weeks. As someone said that leaves a week unaccounted for. When I called her on my return she told me about the letter which I then found in a pile of post which I had yet to go through from when I was away. Neither her or I can prove the date it was delivered.
As a little back story - I had said some 3 months ago approx that I no longer wanted the garage but would continue to rent it from her until she or I found a person to take it over. Obviously, I was happy to pay rent over that period assuming that the rent remained the same and that she gave me good notice. To facilitate this, we agreed to stop paying on a monthly basis and to pay a daily rate. This rate was based on a pro-rata rent which was fine. Nothing exists in writing as there was never any contract between us.
She claims to have called and emailed me. She does not have my email address and if she found it somewhere I simply never received her email so I find that somewhat odd. As for phone calls, she claims to have called me, I think it strange I have no missed calls or messages from her.
She took such extreme action for reasons I simply don't understand. The new tenant of the garage is the same chap who removed the car and has yet to start using it, nor was he in any rush to do so. In fact, I understand that she offered him the garage afterwards.
As for the legalities of the car removal and crushing - I understand there was a letter from her lawyer (who is her son-in-law so no cost) but I have not seen it yet.
Both her and her husband have something of a reputation, one I was unaware of, of being fairly unpleasant people to deal with.
All of those of you who have commented that you want more info - fair enough! I think this covers everything but as I am asking for lawyers and of course any advice, please ask away! If my summation above comes across as a little terse it is only as it is meant to be factual and I do infact appreciate all comments and opinions (unless they disagree with me obviously ;-) ).
And what is TWOC?!
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff