What do you do when your neighbour dents your car?

[dvance]

Woke up this morning to my pride and joy having a rather unsightly gash on one of the rear arches. The only way that could have happened between me parking it safely around 1am in front of my apartment building and me leaving for work in the morning is that one of my neighbors has reversed rather clumsily and hit me. Now, the damage does not seem excessive (though the rear bumper now does not sit quite right), however there's was no contact information left etc. So should I claim it from my insurance, pay out of my own pocket, or try to find my neighbor and prosecute?

Any advice is welcome Grrrr!

[Flintstone]

I take it this is in America?

[Waynester]

You will still need proof, even it is 'likely' your neighbour did indeed hit it.

Any paint residue from the neighbours car left on yours?

[dvance]

No, Edinburgh, Scotland .

There is residue, quite a bit of it -- my car is silver and the offender is red. Though in hindsight I should not have scratched some of it off. Have pictures of my car in the morning. Though should have taken a shot of it from further off I suppose. Have a couple of close ups, and one from which you can also see a bit of the background as well.

[pilchardthecat]

Flintstone said:

I take it this is in America?

I would think popping a cap in his ass would be the usual strategy

[sleep envy]

Flintstone said:

I take it this is in America?

ffs, first response

[dvance]

pilchardthecat said:

Flintstone said:

I take it this is in America?

I would think popping a cap in his ass would be the usual strategy

You have no idea how much I wanted to do that when I saw my car in the morning

[Buzz word]

I would wait until your neighbour gets in. See if they contact you. If not check their car for damage and if there is some ask them if they hit your car. If they dont play ball I would contact the cops and point out the obvious and ask them to take paint so the insurance company claim off them. Don't clean the paint of your car though as you want that imbedded paint to match their car.
Of course all that will get their backs up but it's your call if you want to do it. You may decide it isn't worth it. You may also accidentally spill nails under their tyres one day when a bag splits and forget to clean them up.

[V88Dicky]

I think a bit of research on your own behalf would be a good approach.

1)Which one of your neighbours has a red car?

2)Check around said car(s) for the offending scrape with silver paint in it.

3)When you find it, establish which one of your neighbours it is.

4)Knock on his door.

5)When he answers..................
















PUNCH HIS fkING LIGHTS OUT










The Bastad

[944fan]

I had the same thing happen to me. I didn't notice to later in the afternoon, lucky I remembered that in the morning the car next to mine was parked very close and at a funny angle. I checked that car and there was paint transfer from mine. I took some photos of both cars and spoke to the guy, he denied it so I claimed on my inusrance and as I had legal protection they took his insurer to court and recovered the costs.

If the damage isn't great it is more expensive for the other insurer to fight it than it is to pay up. I didn't even have a witness that he did it.

[dvance]

Thanks for the tip 944fan. I need to figure out which car it exactly was, I think that's going to happen tonight when I get home. The problem is that there's plenty of cars to choose from. I won't really know where they live as well as, there's 3-4 apartment buildings with 20+ apartments in the development where I live.

The only other problem is that I recently moved there, and still don't have the keys to the secure parking lot where I'm meant to park (the letting agency's fault), so that's why my car was parked outside, I am guessing that might be a problem with my insurance company ...

[944fan]

As long as you can find the car your insurance will be able to find their insurance details by the reg no. That's what mine did, when the guy denied it he obviously wouldn't give me his insurance details.

[LuS1fer]

Anyone who thinks the police will have (a) any interest whatsoever in an incident with no witnesses that seems to have occured on private land (b) the budget to forensically analyse paint for a "civil matter" is severely deluded.

Do your detective work and if you find a suspect, challenge them but you'll never prove it without a confession.

Edited by LuS1fer on Friday 15th October 16:10

[StevenB]

I would check all the red cars and if i found one with damage take a picture of it before you see the owner try and include the reg no.

[43034]

Send them an e-mail?

[Vladimir Pukin]

I'd let it go. Otherwise it'll eat away at you until you end up bitter and twisted and hating all humanity. A bit like me.

[Carpie]

Move house.

[dvance]

Yeah, I've sort of given up on finding the guy (now that I've had a day to cool off) -- there's one likely suspect, but as far as I could see last night (was quite dark) I could not find any remnants of my paint on his ding ridden faded-paint Vauxhall Astra.

With a bit of luck my car will be fixed by the end of next week at not a too great expense.

Thanks for all the advice! I am sure karma's a bh and he'll get what he has coming :P


EDIT: I've "given up" in the case that there's no nearby CCTV camera . Will be checking that with the concierge today or tomorrow.

Edited by dvance on Friday 15th October 16:24

[dvance]

Carpie said:

Move house.

I only moved in my current place like last week :facepalm:

[Munter]

If it's not as bad as this:



Count yourself lucky.

Then consider that the other side and door was done a few years earlier also when the car was parked.

Not saying my car's cursed or anything....