| Basic Account Customer |  Property Damage, who's responsible?
Hi there,
I'm hoping someone can give me some insight to a problem I have. It's a bit complicated and long...sorry - We live in Scotland by the way, I know English law is different from Scottish law.
The tenant across the way from us, has a garage that borders our back garden. The upstairs flat and the one across the way (with the garage) is owned by the same owner and is managed by a property service company, and we own our flat with back and front garden.
When the tenants upstairs moved in around April 2005, we had nothing but problems from them - major anti social behaviour.
During the summer of 2005, we caught the tenants upstairs cutting down the trees in our back garden. At that time we made sure to go over which side of the garden is theirs, and that there is a mutual path that separates the 2.
In Nov/Dec of 2005, we were away on holiday and came back to find that our back garden had been dug up around this garage. Before we left on holiday, it was mentioned by the tenants upstairs that this garage is getting replaced with a new one.
We wrote a letter to the property owner, asking if they had begun work to this garage as no one has seeked our permission to start digging in our garden. The property owner then forwarded this on to the property management service.
At the beginning of Jan, we caught them digging around the garage in our garden again. I took photos from our window of them climbing over our boundry fense to dig up the other neighbours garden and steal their slabs. I also found them digging up the mutual path, which they didn't have our permission to do so. They broke up the slabs they stole along with old storage heater bricks and laid them in the path with no rhyme or reason.
I phoned the police but they wouldn't do anything as it would be the other neighbours that would have to report the theft. Unfortunately, they were scared to do so becasue of the anti social behaviour of these people. The police also wouldn't charge them with vandalism for climbing over our boundry fence (which they damaged by doing so) or digging up our garden because they said it wasn't done on purpose. Now, how in the world does anyone accidently climb over a wire fense and accidently digs up someone's garden is beyond me. They also said that it wasn't police business and that it was a property dispute and to contact the land owner. The were also kind enough to point out to me that if they had picked my flowers then they could get them on vandelsim, as that would have been done on purpose. - Sigh.
We later found out the reason they dug up our garden and refilled the holes, was to re-enforce the garage foundation and walls. They wanted to put a car in the garage. This is the same garage that belongs to the other tenants across the way, but our upstairs tenants felt they had a right to it, because the it was owned by the same property owner, even though the property management company told the tenants they weren't allowed to use it or put a car in it. It's very old and not sturdy enough for a car.
We had a meeting with the property service company to go over the boundry lines and the continual harrassement and anti social behaviour of their tenants. The property service told me that they didn't have a copy of the deeds, so I made sure to bring mine, which outlines our property boundries and theirs.
During this meeting (near the end of Jan 06), I showed them photos of the damage they were causing while they were actually doing it. I was told that, the tenants lease would be up at the end of March and it wont be renewed, due to their behaviour. Here's an example of one situation... I was assulted and my door kicked in when I asked them to stop putting their trash and dirty nappies straight into our trash and recycle bin. Council sent us letters about trash being in our recycle bin and they wouldn't dump it, if there was trash in it. So many times we ended up going weeks without our recycle being picked up because of the upstairs tenants putting dirty nappies in it.
Anyways, the property service said that once they move, they will reinstate our garden. Well, March came and we still hadn't heard anything. So we wrote them a letter and this was their reply:
"As discussed in our meeting in Jan 2006, we are taking steps to rectify the unauthorised changes to your property. The situation has been discussed in detail with the tenants who have accepted responsibility for the changes and have agreed to 'reinstate' your ground to the condition it was prior to them laying the path in the garden"
The letter continues with... "Indeed, I did inform you that our own workmen would assist in putting this right and my understanding from the meeting was that we would wait until the spring set in so that the weather would be more appropriate for working outside" - Now, I figure if the tenants had no problems with working outside in Dec/Jan damaging our property, then I can't see why someone can't be out there fixing it! Also, at the meeting the property service company said, they wanted to wait until the lease was up so they didnt have to deal with their tenant (and I quote) "let's face it ____(tenants name) is a fanny".
The letter continues with... "They will remain in the property until such times as all of the issues as outlined in your letter have been resolved and we will review their lease arrangement once this has happened. We hope this clarifies our position with regard to the lease and will revert to you once we have detail of specific dates for the work to commence."
Firstly, let me clarify what we asked in our letter to the property service company..... We wanted the following fixed: our boundry fence the tenants damaged, the digging and filling in our garden around the garage, the widenging of the mutual path into our property, and the dangerously laid slabs and bricks in the mutal path.
I dont know Scottish law, but I would assume based on this letter they (the property service company) has taken on the legal responsibility of reinstating our property.
The property service company finally moved the tenants out from upstairs to another one of their properties at the beginning of June 2006. This was because of the added pressure they were getting from the local council and asbo team. We also heard that as soon as they were moved to the new property the property service gave the tenants a 6 month eviction notice, and since have moved into another property managed by someone else, more likely the council.
During the summer months, we finally went ahead and fixed the mutual path, bought new slabs and laid them correctly. We sent a letter requesting for half of the cost of supplies. Personally, since it was their tenants that did the damage to begin with, we shouldnt' have had to pay for any cost of the supplies. We did receive a cheque for 50%.
We also kept on calling and sending letters asking when our garden would be fixed. Each time we were ignored or brushed off with excuses, such as "I still need to get a hold of the owner, he's on holiday the next 2 weeks", etc. We finally got an estimate from a local landscape company, who said that a retaining wall would need to be put in, because if they just fill the hole with dirt, it will eventually colapse into the garage.
We forwarded a copy of this estimate to the property service and was ignored. Finally we forwarded it to the owner, letting him know that this situation still hasnt been dealt with, and it's going on nearly a year. He replied saying that he forwarded it to the property service company and what is he paying them for if they aren't dealing with it.
Another month goes by with no word from the property service company. We sent another letter to them with another copy of the estimate, giving them 14 days to reply. Their letter "As regards the copy estimate for the retaining wall. This would be the responsilbility of the tenants who were residing at the property at the time. We would have been happy to provide you with the new address for them, unfortunately, on looking through our files, we do not have this ourselves".
So now we are asking ourselves, what do we do? Who is really responsible for the damage to our property? The owner? the property service who agreed to rectify the damage, or the tenants the property service is now claiming. And if it was the tenants all along then why didnt the property service company tell us that over a year ago when the tenants were living there? We could have at least begun some kind of legal thing - we knew where they lived at least.
Any insight is greatly appreciated! |
Re: Property Damage, who's responsible? 
