Where I live we park in a shared car park. It's not secured by gates (private) nor is it lit but we have allocated spaces and some visitor spaces.
A couple of weeks ago early one morning my missus's reverses out of her space and bumps the neighbours car which is not actually parked in a space but was left at 90 degrees to the missus's car directly behind it (even though there were free spaces) and not easy to see as its dark.
Now she does the honest thing and knocks on the neighbours door and explained what had happened and offered to pay for repair. Neighbour didnt bother going outside to look and said thanks for letting me know and don't worry about it! Implying forget about it.
Two weeks later and one evening the missus's gets home and shortly after there is a knock on the door and the neighbour says they have now looked at their car and want to take the car to be looked at by a bodyshop. Implying they want us to pay for its repair!
Both cars are almost the same colour. This missus's car has no paint damage. The neighbours car has a couple of marks scratches on the ns front bumper / wing above wheel back to white primer. No dents.
Seen as they were not parked in space, said don't worry about it and left it two weeks to get back to us I think they are taking the pi$$ to turn up now and ask us to pay. Even though the missus's acknowledged she was at fault.
I reckon it could be repaired by chipsaway or similar for £80 ish. Not seen the neighbours bodyshop quotes yet but I am reluctant to pay anything after their initial response.
What is their legal standing point if any?
If the cost is sub £100 I would consider paying to keep the peace (not that there has been any friction) but if they turn up with a quote for hundreds i'm not. Not fussed if this upsets them as we don't really speak and their persistent bad parking antics annoy me.
Consequences as I see it are plod gets involved although doubt they are interested. Insurance claim. Revenge attack on our property...
Do make sure you see the actual quote, maybe you should point out when you pay for them to re-think how they park. Or you park awkwardly so they can't
edit; where i live people didn't park where they should and double yellows have since been painted, perhaps you could do a petition with your neighbours? (minus those you speak of..)
The way I see it is you will have to pay for it, cos your wife was honest and owned up to doing the damage, it does'nt matter that they said forget about it then changed their mind, I had the same thing happen to me a few years ago when I worked for the council and bumped a car, there was absolutely no damage to the car and the guy said look don't worry there's no damage so forget about it, then a few weeks later I was taken in to the managers office and asked why I had'nt reported an accident, the guy had put in a bill for hundreds of pounds and they had to pay up and I got in some real trouble...anyhoo, I would see what they come up with and if it's too much I would ask them if you could get it quoted and get chipsaway out, they are fantastic and do a great job, I scraped the arch of my last vitara 3 days after getting it, cos it was wider than the last one and scraped it getting it into the garage.
Good luck and hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction!!!
If she bumped it then I'm afraid I don't see why she doesn't have to pay. The car being parked badly is no excuse really is it. Just because he has said anything for a couple of weeks doesn't really change that. Maybe the person has been too busy to think about it...
Anyway be nice to them, see what they say, if the quote is crazy then suggests chips away or something. Don't get upset about it and threaten not to pay.
At the end of the day your Mrs bumped into a parked car, if they decided to take you to court or something crazy like that you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
Good luck with it, hope you get it sorted and it doesn't cost you a fortune!
