Letter Of Claim for death of cat now Court Claim received.

[BankFodder]

I think you should respond immediately with a letter.

Letter should say that you do not accept any responsibility but you would be interested to receive any evidence of injury or damage and of expenses incurred.

 

Tell them that you require pictures of the cat before and after the incident . You require a report from the vet which apparently treated the animal. If there are two vets then you require a report from each of them including invoices for any expenses incurred .

 

Also make it clear that you understand from what he was saying at the time that he was a police officer and so therefore you'd like to have his collar number.

 

Also, if any expenses were incurred in burying the cat then you would like to have a report on an invoice for that .

 

That you want this documentation simply to confirm any claims that they are making. But if it goes to the court but you will require these documents are produced before the court and are justified.

 

Draft a letter and post it here .

I suggest that you do it quickly. We will have a look before you send it off

 

Also, in your letter point out that in respect of their claim that the cat is a pedigree Bengal cat, you required to see any registration documents and evidence  of pedigree and the bill of sale which they must have received when they originally bought the animal.

[BankFodder]

Your response seems to be rather conflict oriented .

I suggest very strongly that you post the draft of your reply here so that we can have a look before we send it off.

 

[BankFodder]

Maybe they are pulling a fast one, but there are slicker ways to deal with it .

 

Post your draft reply here 

 

[BankFodder]

Instead of spending time, posting information here, you would be much better off spending the time drafting your proposed letter and then posting it here so we can check it and then you can move on .

 

If you aren't prepared to do that, then there is probably not much we can do to help you

 

[BankFodder]

You have already been advised as to what to increase in the letter. 

 

I, don't think we can help you any further until we see the draft 

[BankFodder]

Please monitor this thread for further input later on today.

Don't send your letter yet

 

Quote

Dear XXX

Thank you for your letter before action.

For the avoidance of doubt, I do not agree that I have any responsibility in the matter or that I owe you any money.

However, I have great sympathy for the loss of your pet. The loss of any loved family animal is always a blow. Because of this, I have already indicated to you that I might be prepared to make some contribution to the expenses incurred by your loss. However I would not be prepared to consider this in any atmosphere of conflict.

I notice that in your letter you have listed a number of expenses which you have apparently incurred.
I would be grateful if you would let me have the documentation in respect of these including the reports of any work carried out by vets, diagnosis and conclusion.
I would also like to know why you visited two vets.
Similarly please supply me with documentation relating to the burial of your pet along with any comparator estimates which you would have obtained in order to decide the most economical way to proceed.

I notice that you incurred certain petrol costs. Please let me have receipts and also an explanation of the mileage involved.

 

I notice also that you say that the majority of your expenses have been covered by insurance. Please will you let me know what they are so that I can understand what portion of the money you are seeking from me is represented as a percentage of the total insurance payout.

I would suggest that the best thing to do is to provide me with any relevant insurance documents.

I understand that your deceased pet was a pedigree Bengal. Please supply me with details of pedigree registration, original purchase receipts, and details of the microchip registration. Also any recent veterinary reports relating to the health of the animal.
Please would you also supply photographs of the pet before it received any injuries and afterwards.

I have been led to believe from one of the texts I have received is that the animal was suffering from a hernia. I think that in the circumstances it would be reasonable to provide me with a full health report in respect of your pet. There must be one, at the very least because of the hernia problem.
Of course it is unusual for a pedigree animal of this kind of value not to be kept inside the home. Maybe you could let me know why on this occasion your pet was out of your house and even to the extent that it was in a public space where it apparently attracted the interest of my dogs. Please could you confirm that the home of the cat is the address from which you are writing and if not what is the address of its usual home.

 

I should point out now in the event that you feel reluctant to provide me with the documentation I'm seeking, that if you do decide to bring this matter to court then  I am quite certain that you will be required by the judge to produce this paperwork in open court by way of evidence.

 

Once I have received the above documentation then I will be better able to understand the position and whether further documentation is required.

In terms of the contents of your letter, I'm afraid that your recollection is completely different to mine. Apart from expressing sympathy for the situation, I have not accepted any responsibility. Also, the incident occurred on public land, not on your own private property as suggested by you.

Quite understandably you were extremely angry but at one point you did claim to me that you were a police officer. I now understand that this may not be the case. Of course, many things were said in the heat of the moment.
The police were called and have reported back to me that they have no further interest the matter because no crime has been committed.

 

Finally, I see that you propose using some Alternative Dispute Resolution service to resolve this problem. It is always a sensible idea to seek alternatives to court action if at all possible in order to reduce your liability for costs in the event that you lose your action.
Please will you tell me which ADR service you have identified and how you would propose to proceed.

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

I suggest that you sent the letter above without any changes unless you see that there is something which is not correct although I have misunderstood some part of your account.

Go and get photographs of the area where it happened.

Get a Google map and identify with crosses where you were, where the dogs were, where the cat was, with the border to their property is – as such.

Make it nice and clear.

Upload the marked Google map here in PDF format.

If you upload any more documents, please will you upload them in a proper format rather than simply photographed document in the way the the letter of claim has been presented to us and which frankly is rather scrappy.
We help you for free but part of the deal is that you provide us with sight of documents in good condition and properly scanned.

If you don't have a scanner then you can buy one for about 50 quid curries or else you can use an app called Adobe scan.

 

[BankFodder]

11 minutes ago, theberengersniper said:

@danyboy72 - You'll want to carefully read and correct some spelling issues with Bankfodder's suggested reply, don't just copy and paste it into a letter. Bankfodder uses dictation software, so these things are inevitable and a tiny price to pay for their experience in dealing with these sorts of issues. 

 

Thanks for this. I'm afraid that it is a mixture of my poor articulation and my dictation software.

I've gone through and made quite a few edits and hopefully corrected most of the typos or missing words.

[BankFodder]

Are you saying that the cat in question was one of a number of Cats which are living in an open field?

Is the field fenced off with anything which might prevent cats from leaving it?

 

A photo would be useful

[BankFodder]

Thank you. Standby because I may make some edits to the letter.

Any chance that you might get photographs of some of the cats out on that verge.

Any chance that you might get a neighbour to give you something in writing in relation to cars having to stop to avoid cats? (Leave that until a claim is issued, if at all)

Are you able to get a good photograph of the dilapidated fence

[BankFodder]

I have made an amendment to the proposed letter above – in red

 

If you are happy with the letter that I suggest that you get it off in the post today. Send it recorded delivery if you can.

Keep us updated as to any developments.

[BankFodder]

That's helpful but get a picture of the dilapidated fence when you can.

Send the letter off

[BankFodder]

Also, in case it needs pointing out to you, don't have any more contact with them. Ignore any text messages, telephone calls – anything. Don't make any further offers to pay any money at all.

Decline to comment. Refuse to answer questions.

Report everything to us first

[BankFodder]

Please continue as instructed. Ignore and post the letter.

[BankFodder]

No

[BankFodder]

Have you posted the letter?

[BankFodder]

@danyboy72, @whitelist - I'm going to move these posts to the bear garden if this continues.

 

Has the letter been sent?  Why not.

There are very limited costs in a small claims action

[BankFodder]

Ignore

[BankFodder]

Keep a backup of all texts received – off your phone just in case.

[BankFodder]

Yes, I agree with my site team colleague above. Whatever you do don't deliver it by hand. This will only lead to face-to-face conflict, contradictory stories and accusations.
First class post is fine with a certificate of posting.

 

[BankFodder]

Okay, absolutely nothing to do now rather than wait either for the evidence that you have asked for or else the claim form.

 

[BankFodder]

I haven't really been following this discussion very much although I am aware that it  has been going on, and on, and on, and on….

Could you just do a recap in terms of the evidence you required please.

Please can you list out the documents that you asked to see and what the response has been in respect of each one.

Please don't get into a narrative about this. Really we just want lists.

Also if you think there is anything missing – please list that separately.

I believe that they sent your letter of claim. When did they send that to you and how many days did it apparently give you. I expect we are beyond their deadline by now. By how many days has their deadline expired

[BankFodder]

Thanks for this.

Haven't made any comment about the veterinary work. Has she supplied you with details? Is there a bill for it?

Has she let you know the insurance details that you have asked for? We would also want to know about how much money has been paid by the insurers and in respect of what expenses.

 

[BankFodder]

Sorry but could you just give me some brief answers to the questions I have put .

I really don't have the time to go through nearly 25 pages of poorly scanned documents for you.

 

Please do be aware that we are trying to help you free of charge.

We're not asking you for money and we don't have administrative support. We rely on you to try and be a straightforward and as easy as possible

 

[BankFodder]

I don't think you should put anything which suggests any possibility that you might pay anything at all.

 

Quote

Dear XXX

Thank you for your letter containing certain evidential documents. I notice that not all of the questions I have put and the requests that I have made for evidential documents have been met.

I think the best thing you can do now is to issue your claim and we will let a judge sort it out in court.
You can be certain that the judge will want to see proper evidence and hear testimony from vets et cetera.

I suggest that you take some legal advice because you will find that almost everything that you are claiming is not considered to be a valid head of damage.

And as for the rest, I expect that a judge will consider that there is no liability at all and that you will not succeed in getting a judgement and you will be saddled with the cost of the action.

Good luck

Signed

 

[BankFodder]

After you have sent the letter, don't respond to anything further – whatever it is.

Tell us about it first but probably we will recommend that you only respond if you actually receive a claim form.

Frankly I think it is most unlikely that you receive a claim form.

I think I did ask you earlier on when did the deadline in their letter of claim expire. I don't think you answered this