Guttering dispute with next door neighbour

[chappers]

maybe later down the line, depending on their response. take this step by step as it progresses. In the first instance just refute their claim, showing your evidence. It's not your job to justify the works that were carried out or their necessity, by arguing about the state of his guttering, it could be deemed that you are admitting the damage and just trying to mitigate their claim.
Again stick to the facts about their claim and your evidence that you didn't cause the damage.
Don't start complicating the issue by worrying about what has happened between the homeowner, their insurance company and the surveyor, it's not your concern.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Your neighbour must be a nasty piece of ****e, for him to do this, a good neighbour would never do that. A good neighbour would know that his gutter is pretty old and in a bad state and will eventually need repairs or replacing with a new one, without looking for an excuse or waiting for an opportunity to snap at and then present you with a nasty and shocking bill by holding you responsible for damage to his crumbling old gutter.

He is taking advantage of your good nature.

You really don't have to prove anything regarding the condition of his gutter. Whether it was good or bad, or damaged, but before he engaged his insurance company or anyone, If he had any issues with you and his gutter, he should have first consulted you, discussed this matter with you, and he should have made his intentions clear to you that if you don't do anything to fix his gutter then he shall get someone to fix it and give you a bill, so did he do that ? If he had any concerns that your builder damaged his gutter, it would have been at this stage that he should have given you the opportunity to address his concern, or fix any damage caused to his gutter, Did he do that? Did he tell you that he will be seeking a claim or componsation?

So only then if there were real issues, and you ignored them or chose not address them, then he has the right to get it fixed and put a claim through.
Further more these sort of things should be in writing as well, so no one can deny.


So write back to his insurance company that you are not liable for anything. as this has come as a complete shock to you and you will not pay a penny or entertain any part of this claim since you were not consulted or knew anything was wrong with his gutter, if there were any issues then you should have been given the opportunity to address them, but you were not consulted by anyone.

Get a solicitor to do that, I know it may cost you a few bob, but you have a £5K claim on you, so if you have to pay a solicitor £250.00 then it may be money well spent. If you really don't want a solicitor, seek free advice from your CAB.

( But that is what I would do, write back, and say you knew nothing of it and your neighbour had not discussed anything issues with you or gave you any opportunity to fix any issues, so you are not going to entertain this claim what so ever. )

Did he come over to you and accused you of damaging his gutter?
or discussed anything that he was not happy with?
then he has no right to present you with a bill nor his insurance company.

Like I said, I think he is devious, he tried to make a claim from his insurers that you damaged his gutters, you will probably find that his insurers will be more sympathetic to you especially if you tell them that you have all the proof in photographs and on google images, they know many people are devious and fraudulently make claims blaming damage on someone else.

I think they will most probably end up taking him to court for a fraudulent claim.

 

[chappers]

But the whole thing that I don't understand is why the insurance company even took it on if there was a hint that a third party was to blame. It's just not how they work.
My guess is it went something like this;
Ssomethings happened to my gutter I want to claim, OK, we have given contractor x the job to come and fix it. Contractor x comes and says as it's on the insurance, why don't we do the whole lot for you. OK says neighbour. Invoice goes in to insurers, they blow a fit and say how comes it's cost so much to just effect a repair, contractor says it was so damaged that it wasn't cost effective to repair and anyway the damage was caused by next doors recent works, here's my report to justify the works I carried out.
Neighbour may have had very little to do with making the accusations of damage, and to be fair it looks like he just made a claim on his own insurance and now this has spiralled out of his control, possibly due to a greedy contractor.

As I have said , at this point I wouldn't be bringing anything into the argument about whether the neighbour informed you of damage or not, as again that could be in some way an admission of liability.
Just stick to, you said I caused X damage here is my evidence I didn't and stick to denying the accusation.
My initial response to the insurers solicitor wouldn't be more than a paragraph long , plus a couple of pictures included.

 

[station1212]

Hi chapped

I was thinking pretty much the same...6 weeks after our gutters were fitted the neighbour rang me to say that my son in law had damaged his guttering..I went to see my neighbour and he pointed to the gutter where it used to join onto our gutter at the front of the properties. .he said you could quite clearly see that my son in law had pulled it downwards and to be honest at that time that looked to be correct because I'd never noticed it before. The neighbour said that since we had done our gutters that his guttering above his bay window ..he claimed we must have broken the seal between where his first length of his gutter met the second...now I know nothing about gutters so I asked a roofer/gutter guy to go up and look at it and get back to me with his thoughts. ..while I was waiting for that to happen the guy next door text me to say he had a call builder round and he had quoted him 300 to replace his guttering or the small claims court....I replied I was waiting for a roofer to come and look at it.
When the roofer called me to say that we had not damaged any of his gutter and he also said he had knocked on next doors and told him the same....I assumed that was the end of it..the roofer even said as a favour to me he would seal the joint where the neighbour claimed we had made his gutter leak but be needed two days dry weather to be able to do the repair...I informed next door and he said OK. ..we never got two dry days for the next 5 weeks or so and I kept next door informed all the way along...
I vot a call from the roofer to say it had been dry and he was going up to do tbe repair that afternoon...i text next door to let him know...When the roofer turned up to do the repair next door came out and said "what are you doing to the roofer"...I've come to repair the leaking joint to which the neighbour said "your not touching my gutter because my insurance are replacing it with new and sending him the bill !!! (Meaning me )
My roofer left but rang me to let me know what had been said...two weeks later he had all his gutters replaced by his insurers !!!

 

[chappers]

Just seems strange that's not how insurers work in my experience, they don't pay up for 3rd party liabilities and then go and claim the money.
Anyway how ever it has got to this stage is pretty irrelevant, just work on denying their claims, with your evidence, would still love to see the surveyors report if you can be bothered.
Sounds like your neighbour has some sort of split personality disorder.
On the subject of the first joint I'd be very surprised if that wasn't already leaking. Unfortunately the google image is obscured by the lamppost, but the general direction and out of level nature can be seen and it looks very similar to your after pictures, also unfortunately the google image from 2009 is obscured by a big bush, but the same drop at the junction with your property can be seen.

I think the way you should proceed is simple.
First write to them exactly, what damage they claim you have done, and on what grounds do they think you are liable for the bill. Keep it as simple as that and await their response.
All correspondence in writing , no phone calls or e-mails, I'm sure that this goes without saying but keep copies of everything.

Also in case you need it and to get things straight in your head, produce a chronology of everything that happened and was said from you starting the works until receiving a bill from the insurers. Try to fill in dates and times where you can.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

So as you have updated more information, since you never told us what went between him and you, like if he made any complaints etc, so now since he did, hence your only option now is to contest the charges, and no bloody way anyone would fork out % grand for a roof gutter, including hiring of scaffolding, you can get a whole bloody roof for that with new guttering.

So in the end you may have to pay some amount, but it ain't going to be £300.00, and more like the insurance company might want half at least which is still way too much, you know how much it cost you to have yours done., probably under a grand.

 

[station1212]

Hi Mike

I didnt want to put every move that next door had made as it would read like war and peace !!!
So tried to keep it as short as possible.
One thing that springs to mind is the guy next door told me we had made his gutter joint above his front bay leak ( look at the picture, it shows his gutter is knackered ) but when the insurers builders surveyor came out he stated that the house owner had informed him that since we had replaced our guttering he had noticed water running down the front and rear of his property !!!! And the surveyor beleived him and put that in his report by saying
Mr ******* had told him about water running down his property front and rear since our replaced guttering was fitted ..He further stated in his report that this suggests that rainfall that was being caught before was now missing the gutter and running down the walls !!!!!!!! Biggest pile of sh"te ive ever heard in my life !!!!
How does a gutter that the surveyor states has been moved 1/2 an inch mis a gutter that is 6 inches wide and further more you can see from the pictures that his gutter , dispite being warped and all over the place is still quite clearly in the correct position to catch his rainfall !!!!!

You will notice from the pics that we have had a brand new roof fitted on our property last june ...It cost £2200 !!!!! The builders £5000 price is outrageous and a rip off But ive been advised not to complicate this by arguing over the costs but just to stick to proving we didnt damage his gutters

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Hi Mike

I didnt want to put every move that next door had made as it would read like war and peace !!!
So tried to keep it as short as possible.
One thing that springs to mind is the guy next door told me we had made his gutter joint above his front bay leak ( look at the picture, it shows his gutter is knackered ) but when the insurers builders surveyor came out he stated that the house owner had informed him that since we had replaced our guttering he had noticed water running down the front and rear of his property !!!! And the surveyor beleived him and put that in his report by saying
Mr ******* had told him about water running down his property front and rear since our replaced guttering was fitted ..He further stated in his report that this suggests that rainfall that was being caught before was now missing the gutter and running down the walls !!!!!!!! Biggest pile of sh"te ive ever heard in my life !!!!
How does a gutter that the surveyor states has been moved 1/2 an inch mis a gutter that is 6 inches wide and further more you can see from the pictures that his gutter , dispite being warped and all over the place is still quite clearly in the correct position to catch his rainfall !!!!!

You will notice from the pics that we have had a brand new roof fitted on our property last june ...It cost £2200 !!!!! The builders £5000 price is outrageous and a rip off But ive been advised not to complicate this by arguing over the costs but just to stick to proving we didnt damage his gutters

It seems it is a war and peace indeed, and that is why initially we all asked you to deny that you had damaged any part of his gutter or had anything to do with it apart from connecting your new gutter with the common down pipe shared by his and your gutter.

Stick to your guns, whatever you or your builder did, you both did it with your best intentions and at no time did you or he move his gutter out of alignment other than lowering it by 1/2inch to meet with your new gutter, and as a matter of fact lowering would increase the water flow out better, so just bluntly refute the claim, just say you will not be paying anything, not a penny, and that you have plenty of photographic evidence before and after your builder completed the job.

Therefore if necessary you will be able to defend this claim in a Court as you have more than sufficient evidence to prove that you did not damage or move his gutter away from the wall.

 

[big-all]

another though
this a legit insurance company rather than a fake/manufacterd set up designed to con??

 

[station1212]

Hi big all

Yes it's a national insurance company

 

[chappers]

Yep I would stick to your guns as quite clearly the before and after pictures clearly show the guttering hasn't moved. if they come back and say that you agreed to do some repairs, just say that that was a gesture of good will as you can't see how you could have caused a leak further along, as you didn't move the guttering. Then would be the time to bring in the poor state of his guttering and say that there is a high likelihood that it was already leaking.
Just crack on with denying their claim for now, and then take it from there.

 

[station1212]

Cheers chappers

 

[station1212]

Just a thought chappers

How would you construct the letter to the insurance to make sure I don't give too much info

I was thinking google earth pictures from 2009 and 2014 to show guttering hasn't been pulled down on the front elevation and picture of rusty nail holding up his guttering up at the back ...keeping my pictures back for further communications...or should I hit them with all my evidence and pictures in one big hit

Your thoughts are appreciated

 

[station1212]

Neighbouring property has had new UPVC fascia and gutters fitted. Policy holders cast iron gutters have been pulled away from the property and forced down on the front elevation and up on the rear elevation to allow them to fit into the neighbours new UPVC guttering. The cast iron bracket on the rear elevation has been pull out and packed with ply wood fixed to the rafter end, again to accommodate for the fitting of the new UPVC fascia and gutter to the neighbouring property

The above is the "surveyors report" every piece of it is incorrect

 

[PTS2]

You told us their solicitor was dealing with it now, why would you write to the insurance company?

Remember, you don't have to prove anything, they do. However you also need to do all you can to prevent it getting to court otherwise you'll just annoy the judge so don't hold things back to ambush them as nobody will think it's clever. As they've got solicitors involved you need to be sure about the law and process, which you clearly aren't, so you now need to speak to a solicitor yourself.

Even so, the story doesn't make sense. Maybe Watchdog would take on as it would make good tele.