KevinV
Well-known member
Well over the small claims limit - you're going to have a hard time if they flatly deny liability.
Advice problems after boat sank
- Thread starter durza
- Start date
Tranona
Well-known member
This sounds very odd. You say this happened a "few weeks ago" - exactly when? Have you submitted a detailed claim with supporting evidence? If so when? A claim for £26k is significant (and way above the limit for the small claims procedure).
Suggest you contact the harbour's insurers direct to confirm they have received your claim.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
The OP has no contract with the company's insurers & may not even be aware who they are
The Op would not need to engage with them until such time that they express an interest
The marina Co is not obliged to refer the claim to a third party ie. the insurance co anyway.
They could decide to deal with it "in house"
chriss999
Well-known member
Seems odd to me.
durza
New member
their pontoon was never dragged under it smashed my swim platform though the stern and swung back popping a hole in the concrete lighter it never went down just did that and part my stern lines it survived the night on its last line , also want to point out its an old NATO pontoon 9 ton steel block essentiallyIf it is proved that you dragged their pontoon under. Can you bear the cost & court fees?
Could go that way with a decent KC on the other side.
durza
New member
it was and i lost thanks, but i couldn't get comp insurance with ought a full survey and i was mid refitting the boat so saw little point having a survey before and after.
The week it sank i was supposed to be finished the refitting having just rebuilt both engine not fishing it out the water.
durza
New member
Well at this point its a money claim not a small claim and I'm going after the harbour not their insurance i have no need to directly contact them that's up to the harbour i have however cc'd there insurance into every email just for there information but considering that on ones even replied even to acknowledge i just find it unprofessional and rude considering iv been a volunteer and ad-hock for the harbour for a few years to help them out when they needed it.
durza
New member
24 Nov date sunk
26 Nov made formal complaint
29 Nov boat recovered to drying berth
5 Dec Send letter of damages to harbour
7 Dec second storm it re sank
9 Dec pumped out
11 Dec pumped out
15th Dec Pumped out
16 Dec sent further letter with 10 day notice court intent
26 should get response
Daydream believer
Well-known member
Really?
KevinV
Well-known member
Within 20 days you've gone from initial complaint to threatening court action - with only 11 days between sending an amateur damage report and a deadline on Boxing day?? The Harbour Authority will have been told by their insurers not to respond to correspondence, and the insurers have hardly had time to allocate a claims handler, let alone get a damage surveyer to have a look (they've been a bit busy after the storms and floods). I understand that you're upset, but your lack of insurance was your own choice.
Good luck to you, we all hate to see a nice boat smashed up, but I'm afraid that being this bombastic will backfire badly when the insurers are back after the holidays.
Tranona
Well-known member
Not sure you understand the process. www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money You will need to present a case in just the same way as any other court - that is show that the other party is negligent and the extent of your loss. There is a fee for submitting your claim - £1360 in your case. you will be expected to show that you have given the third party an opportunity to make good your loss, including negotiations and ideally using a mediation service .
You are nowhere near in this position. All you have done is submit your claim to the third party and you have to give them an opportunity to respond. Your sequence of events is nothing out of the ordinary. The third party has acknowledged your claim and passed it to their insurer. This is a busy time of the year for insurers particularly given the 2 recent major storms and it is totally unreasonable to expect a response in 10 days. Sending your letter on 16 December threatening them with court is more likely to put you at the bottom of the pile.
Suggest you climb down from your high horse and act properly. Making a claim for negligence and consequent damage is not a trivial thing and no doubt you will be required to submit your claim to the insurer in a way that enables them to assess it properly. You may need professional help, at least in establishing your loss and likely in establishing negligence. site visits and probably negotiations then follow before your claim is settled (or not). If it is not, or you are unhappy with the settlement court proceedings then become an option, but to do that you need to know the grounds for refusal and determine whether there is a case in law for challenging it. The two most common reasons for rejection of third party claims are the party was not negligent or the damage was less than claimed. The first is very difficult to challenge and the second requires expert evidence to challenge their expert.
I suggest you apologise to the third party for making the threat and give them and their insurer an opportunity to respond. You have to accept that this process will take weeks and probably months to reach a resolution. Untill you get a formal response from the insurer there is nothing you can do except make sure your boat is secure from further damage.
durza
New member
Hey Tranona,
I did read through the .Gov and was left with more questions then answers which is how i'm afraid iv ended up here. Thank you for your response its exactly what i was hoping for when i made the post i rely just want to go about this in the correct way to maximise the chance it can be resolved in the correct way i don't want to be seen as a bad actor in this so far the advice iv been given in person by a friend may not be the correct way but its all i had.
I did try to hire a professional surveyor to assess the damage of the boat and situation and to make a proper report up but he turned me down as it would be a conflict of interest as he has worked and had more work booked in with the harbour, sadly its a small world in the marine sector and iv been told this by a few and i can barley afford their going rate of locals so doubt i can afford to hire one from further afield even a solicitor seems cheaper then the day rate of a marine surveyor !
I plan to draft a letter today to apologize for my previous approach, which may have been too assertive. I also intend to seek legal assistance before sending any further correspondence, but again if anyone has more advice having being through such a thing themselves id love to hear how it went and how you went about it.
Cheers
Daydream believer
Well-known member
Firstly I would not start apologising. That demonstrates a position of weakness.
Get legal assistance before doing anything. Which in hindsight you should have done from the very onset.
However, it will be costly & it sounds as if you do not have the funds to proceed.
Perhaps it would be better to recover what you can of the vessel & make an estimate of the costs so far incurred plus a cost of work to reinstate the work so far ruined.
You may decide that the cost of recovering the costs incurred, as well as the replacement costs, are not worth the risks of failure
Get legal assistance before doing anything. Which in hindsight you should have done from the very onset.
However, it will be costly & it sounds as if you do not have the funds to proceed.
Perhaps it would be better to recover what you can of the vessel & make an estimate of the costs so far incurred plus a cost of work to reinstate the work so far ruined.
You may decide that the cost of recovering the costs incurred, as well as the replacement costs, are not worth the risks of failure
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Tranona
Well-known member
OK
Not sure you actually need a survey at this point. You can't really do anything until the insurer contacts you and asks you to submit your claim. Prepare an account of what you think happened to cause the damage (broken mooring lines, lack of inspection etc.) and details of the damage to your boat supported by photos. Estimate how much it will cost to put the boat back in the same condition as it was before the accident.
This is important as the law you are claiming under is what is known a the Law of Torts which requires the third party to put you back where you were. Unlike claiming on your own insurance where what they pay is based on the insurance contract, meeting that obligation can be subject to negotiation where the insurer will seek to minimise what they pay out - or avoid paying at all. If they do not respond positively at some point you will probably need to hire a surveyor to argue your case. Expect to pay around £500 initially for a survey and opinion. The insurer will have their own surveyor so it may become a battle of the experts.
It may of course be an open and shut case - difficult to say without knowing all the details, but I think you have to be prepared for a fight and at some point make a decision as to how far you go or settling for less than you might like.
steveeasy
Well-known member
Duty of care !!!. Thats an interesting point I would not have considered. Does 1 person have a duty of care to another person or their property?. ive no idea. Not so sure they do. Its cropped up in my life a few times and each time its been a get out of jail card for the other party.
Steveeasy
Steveeasy
Tranona
Well-known member
You must have led a sheltered life - or been lucky! Duty of Care is one of the fundamental principles of UK Common Law which governs how we relate to each other. See the link in post#7 for a summary of how it works. It is part of the fabric of our society and unlike legislation which attempts to prescribe what you can and cannot do to others Tort is based on the facts of the individual case against the principles. Of course there is a lot of case law built up over the centuries that give good guidance as to how the law should be applied so it is rare that cases actually go to court.
For the OP the big distinction in law for him is that as he was not insured for all risks where his insurer would pay out according to the insurance contract and then seek to reclaim from the third part insurer (if there is one), he has to make a claim direct on the third party, the harbour authority. They will pass to their insurer. He must show first that they owed a duty of care (which they almost certainly do) that they failed in this (maybe because the mooring ropes were inadequate or poorly maintained) and that a loss or damage occurred to his boat. If the case is proven the third party has to put the claimant back into the same position as he was before the event, either repairing his boat or reaching a financial settlement to replace his boat.
As you can imagine the insurer's objective is first to try and deny liability or seek to minimise the cost of putting him back where he was. In good forum tradition I could write reams on how they might go about this - they are experts at it so have a good playbook. Suffice to say that the OP will probably find it challenging - as would I in similar circumstances.
benjenbav
Well-known member
Put simply, a tort is a civil wrong. Negligence is one example of a tort. Proving it involves demonstrating that, on a balance of probabilities, someone failed to do, or to prevent, something as a consequence of which someone else has suffered foreseeable loss.
It’s not like a simple money claim because you have to prove both that the causation resulted from such a failure and also quantify the extent of the loss attributable to the negligence.
When you complained the harbour will probably have passed the complaint on to their third party/public liability insurer, assuming they have one (they could be self-insured).
A term of any insurance policy is that the insured hands the issue over to the insurer and doesn’t try to fix it themselves. If they do, likely the insurer will wash their hands of them.
The insurer is a business that’s there to make money. They won’t pay out just because a third party is upset.
They will take their time, review the evidence, seek to minimise any payout by identifying contributory negligence on the part of the claimant etc.
It won’t be their first rodeo, which is where the claimant may need help, to produce compelling evidence and deal with the procedures of a claim.
It’s not like a simple money claim because you have to prove both that the causation resulted from such a failure and also quantify the extent of the loss attributable to the negligence.
When you complained the harbour will probably have passed the complaint on to their third party/public liability insurer, assuming they have one (they could be self-insured).
A term of any insurance policy is that the insured hands the issue over to the insurer and doesn’t try to fix it themselves. If they do, likely the insurer will wash their hands of them.
The insurer is a business that’s there to make money. They won’t pay out just because a third party is upset.
They will take their time, review the evidence, seek to minimise any payout by identifying contributory negligence on the part of the claimant etc.
It won’t be their first rodeo, which is where the claimant may need help, to produce compelling evidence and deal with the procedures of a claim.
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steveeasy
Well-known member
Lucky!!. Think I have been. When the government were handing out huge grants to Farmers!! anything from 100,000 to 900,000, a previous business of ours was ruined by the grants awarded. A 3 year parliamentary investigation found Defra had acted with significant maladministration and upheld our complaint fully.
Trying to sue for damages, the matter of duty of care cropped up and it was determined Defra and EMDA did not owe us or anyone a duty of care. Recon I was lucky as any action would have bleed us dry.
Steveeasy
prestomg27
Active member
Get a good solicitor and ask them to start proceedings for recovering your monies owed and costs.
Boathook
Well-known member
I suspect that solicitors will require some money up front, something the OP hinted he didn't have much off.
