Howdy everyone,

I am not a happy bunny at the moment. I was attending an offsite business meeting yesterday at Norwoodhall and as I was reverse parking my front bumper was ripped off - not pleased!

As you come up towards the hotel you drive up a tarmac'd driveway from the main road. As you approach the carpark areas you have to drive off the tarmac and into gravel parking bays defined by cut down logs. In doing so you drive over a small concrete divider which stops the gravel from getting onto the main driveway. The space that I attempted to reverse into had a big (5" +) dip on the other side which I could not see.

So once my front passenger wheel had cleared the concrete divider I was greeted by a huge bang and scraping noise. Needless to say I shat myself, stopped immediately and went round to check the front of my car......

To find the front passenger side of the bumper ripped off and at 90degs to the front wing - still stuck on the concrete lip. So I drove off it and back up onto the tarmac driveway - sourced another parking bay and inspected the damage. At this point I am absolutely fuming.

I realise this thread is useless without pictures so (please excuse the poor quality the pics are from my iPhone): -

This is the concrete lip in question - you can clearly see a chunk taken out of the top and the white scrape where my car ended up.


This is the hole that greeted and ended my front bumper - the hole is about 5" deep and I used my car keys to give it some scale.


As you can see here the dip onto the gravel parking bays is not consistent. I was unaware of the big dip as my rear wheels never encoutered it due to the angle I reversed into the space.


So it ripped my front bumper skin off to 90degs. It pinged back some of the way once I had driven back off the lip. But as you can see it nolonger aligns.


This also snapped my carbon splitter in to and broke the retaining tabs on the foglight covers.


Close up of splitter. Totally minced...


I had to make some DIY repairs to keep the bumper in place as after the meeting I was going to pick up my wife and 4-1/2 month old daughter.




So I calmed myself down and went into the hotel to complain. My details were taken and I was informed the General Manager was on duty until 7pm and that she would still be there after my meeting had finished at 5.30pm. So meeting finishes and the GM has gone home - but left me a message to say they (Norwoodhall) don't accept any responsibility for damage occurring in the carpark. And she left her 20year old duty manager to inform me.

I don't see why I should have to claim this damage on my insurance - my understanding is that as it is private land they have a "duty of care" to maintain their carpark to an acceptable level that does not cause damage to patron's cars. Can you imagine the damage that would have been caused to a Porsche??

So I popped into Kinghorn this morning to have a quote prepared. Thankfully the bumper skin is not damaged and they even managed to reposition the skin back on for me on the spot. However, I need a new splitter (Chargespeed CF Bottomline Type 2 - £475 supplied from SRB), arch liners, liner undertray and bumper guides + fitment. Thankfully I don't need a new bumper, washers or headlights. So it is going to be a hefty bill.

I get a call back from a very unhelpful GM this morning at 10.30am approx and get the company line that they do not accept any reponsibility and that I should phone my insurance company. :

Does anyone have any legal background that they can share? Does the hotel have a responsibility under law to maintain their carpark appropriately? Any help is greatly appreciated.

I am so flippin angry............. :angry: :censored:

Dave

 

Gutted. But no advice sadly.

 

kinghorns the place like ;-)

 

The obvious thing would be to get your insurers on the case, you would think if they could pin the responsibility on someone else and therefore claim against them they would......

However most of them these days can't be arsed chasing something like that through the courts for what amounts to £1500 worth of damage tops. It's easier for them just to pay out, get your car repaired, case closed. Except you lose your no-claims bonus and they load you premium next year as you have an accident on record Long term the insurers win

 

yeah indeed, i think in this case you wont win against norwoodhall anyway so either pay out you own pocket of ask mr insurance to do so, sorry mate.

 

Small claims court? Costs very little (maybe £100 for a claim of this size), prepare the case yourself and roll the dice.

Get some legal advice first though, you really need to know if they have a responsibility to maintain the car park or if there have been such cases before. I suppose you could argue that they advertised a 'car park' which was clearly not such (is unfit for parking a car). Judges and the law are a nightmare, but I think you have a reasonable chance here. Could always inform your insurance and delay the claim as long as possible pending small claims court decision.

 

but left me a message to say they (Norwoodhall) don't accept any responsibility for damage occurring in the carpark.

if that is the case i'd presume they would have some kind of sign up saying so.

 

From my understanding it doesn't matter if they do have a sign up saying they don't accept responsibility for damage. That refers to third person damage which is not the responsibility of the hotel ( in other words bumps, scrapes, dings and theft). However, the hotel has a duty of care to maintain their facilities appropriately so as not to cause damage to patron's cars.

I have been fortunate enough to run this past a solicitor and he has confirmed that I have a very good case for the hotel to take 100% responsibility for the repair costs. So bring on the battle of resolve and formal letters.

What a pain in the ****. Don't need this right now...

 

If the counsil leaves a large pot hole in the road which damages a car then they are responsible, so is this not the same kind of thing?

 

My understanding is yes they are...

And that's what I am fighting!

DC

 

Go get them tiger!

 

Hope you get it sorted out without too muxh hassle.

 

All this claim culture bores me, fact is you should have looked where you are going......

 

^^^
i've had incidents like this before in my clio and scoob(halfway house & my local mcDs) where because of my splitter(scoob) front bumper(clio) was so low, i've either cracked the front or totally ripped the bumper off
obviously i paid to repair the damage out my own pocket... still have a big crack on my splitter on my scoob...

wiley

 

in the past i ripped my splitter clean off driving into a shel garage, i was told by the manager that its not there fault because i chose to lower my car so it was not standard height

hope you get it sorted in your favour

jim

 

Sorry but I agree.

 

What an idiotic statement - I was looking where I was going for your information. I hope that you encounter this situation in the near future and have to shell out £700 to get your car fixed. All because a business failed to maintain their facilities appropriately.

If you have nothing positive to say then may I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself. It is mindless comments like this that give a great forum like this a bad name.

I am very dissappointed...

 

If you dont want comments dont put your indescretions on a public forum.

Take it on the chin, its not as if it jumped out at you.

 

I always fancied a splitter on my Scoob but felt that my front end would be subject to issues such as yours. I now drive an elise and as a result, my front end is way lower than my Scoob ever was, so i make sure i'm always very careful with the front.
I lean very much towards 172's way of thinking.
Surely if you had already reversed your backend over said drop then you must have known what was in store for the front end?

 

Surely the land owners operating a buisness there would have liability insurrance.
Do they have any signs up displaying that they don't take any responsibility for cars parked in there car park ?

 

Should have gone to specsavers buddy

 

so you drove into a high kurb? and somone else has to pay?

just un bolt the whole bumper and re bolt it up and get some parking sensors fitted.

 

I agree with the majority. Reverse off a kerb with an aftermarket splitter and the results are your own problem. It's a shame, but accept you foofed up and move on !

 

Some heartless comments here guys.

If he didn't know of the drop (or couldn't see it) and it's not like you'd expect it, then he has every right to be p*ssed off.

So, if you drove over a bad pothole damaging your wheels, would you just take it on the chin - or would you try to recover damages from the council?

 

He reversed over it so the back of the car must have gone over said drop before the front
Yep - have damaged a wheel with a pothole and nope, didn't claim

 

Right - you really bore and disappointment me. Indescretions - what in the world do you propose I did wrong?

If I don't want comments - I did not solicite general comments - I fact I specifically asked,

"Does anyone have any legal background that they can share? Does the hotel have a responsibility under law to maintain their carpark appropriately? Any help is greatly appreciated."

So if by your vivid imagination you read this as: "oh I know lets bash someone who is facing a £700 repair bill due to a situation beyond his control" you need medical attention.

And finally "Take it on the chin, its not as if it jumped out at you."
How old are you?? How childish...

Read the original post before replying - I did not drive into a high curb.
Do you honestly think if it had been as SIMPLE as that I would have gone to such bother to get legal advice. For goodness sake REALLY?

Read the original post before replying - I did not reverse off a high curb.
Do you honestly think if it had been as SIMPLE as that I would have gone to such bother to get legal advice. For goodness sake REALLY?

As stated in the original post: -

"As you can see here the dip onto the gravel parking bays is not consistent. I was unaware of the big dip as my rear wheels never encoutered it due to the angle I reversed into the space."

 

If you were to injure yourself, you & they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.... engage the H&S mafia.

Hint,hint.

Shame, but I'd expect to be told to foff as well.

Sorry

dunx

 

ouch, i went over a speenbump and broke my strut. Im sure you can sue for tht.

 

Depend how fast you went over the "speenbump" though doesn't it. I don't doubt that damage would occur if you went over one at 60. How are you going to prove what speed you were doing. Do you have independent witnesses?

One born every minute

 

thats so funny but yet so so sad :l ol1: