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The neighbor’s ball destroyed our greenhouse. His parents have not offered to pay for the repairs. What are our rights?
WW, by email.
Dean Dunham responds: This will always be a complicated situation as you clearly have the right to be reimbursed for any damage to your property caused by your neighbor or their children, but you never want the matter to become a full-blown dispute between neighbors as this can cause more problems. of what it’s worth.
As an example, not only can it be very uncomfortable to fight with neighbors, but the situation can also affect the future salability of your home and therefore potentially devalue it.
That’s because when you sell a home, the law requires you to provide potential buyers with certain key information through what’s known as a “seller’s property information form.”
As part of this, you must disclose any disputes between neighbors. With this in mind, your next steps are important.
Own goal? Can a reader force his neighbor to pay to repair the damage after his son kicked a soccer ball into his greenhouse, breaking part of the glass?
In the first instance, you should take photographs of the damage and collate any evidence that shows that it was indeed your neighbor’s child who caused the damage. CCTV footage would naturally be the best evidence, or perhaps the football if it is still in situ in your greenhouse. .
You must then determine how much it will cost to repair the damage.
Armed with this information, politely approach your neighbor and ask them to cover the cost of the repair.
Many clients tell me that when they politely approach this way, with appropriate testing, they get the desired result.
If your neighbors don’t give in, you will have two options. You can take them to small claims court and claim compensation for damages and inconvenience, or check your home insurance policy to see if it covers accidental damage caused by third parties.
I wouldn’t recommend going to court with this, so an insurance claim will be the best option.
The father died one day after reaching an agreement to expand the house
My father obtained and agreed to a quote for an addition to his house.
However, literally the day after accepting the estimate he died, so no money was paid and work did not begin.
The builder now says he has a binding contract and wants to go ahead and build the addition. Can you force this?
A. Green, Swansea.
Dean Dunham responds: It will be up to the executor of your father’s estate to review the contract, or the circumstances if there is no written contract, and determine whether a binding and enforceable agreement exists.
If the contract is deemed enforceable, the estate will likely be responsible for meeting the obligations or compensating the builder, although based on the limited information you have provided to me, this seems unlikely.
For an enforceable contract to be formed under English law, three key elements must exist. Firstly, there must have been an offer from the builder to carry out the works; here clearly there was.
Secondly, your father should have accepted the offer, and it seems he did. And finally, there must be consideration: this means that his father must have given the builder something in consideration for the proposed works. Obviously, this would normally be a monetary deposit or payment.
Based on the information you have provided to me, it appears that this did not happen, and if this is the case, there will generally be no enforceable contract.
There are two exceptions to this rule. In some cases, a promise may be enforceable without consideration if one party has relied on the promise to their own detriment, and it would be unfair not to enforce the promise.
And then there is the deed, a special type of contract that requires no consideration to be binding.
It must be in writing, signed, witnessed, and delivered to be enforceable, and I don’t think any of these exceptions apply here.
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