"Andy" wrote in message
news


"ernie mendoza" wrote in message
...

My neighbour's old tree fell over and damaged my fence. It was not
windy and the 30-foot tree's roots had obviously rotted and gone. How
should I proceed with getting my fence repaired?

1. Get my neighbour to fix it?
2. Claim on my buildings insurance. In this case should I get his
insurance details so my insurance company can recover costs from his
company? How do i recover my £100 excess? Will my premium increase as
a result of my claim?


The first thing to do is to talk to your neighbour. Do not ask "Are you
going to pay for the repair?" as this is a closed question and can be
answered with a simple yes or no which is 50/50. Instead, butter them up
first with a comment like "That was was unlucky! At least it was only a
fence", then use an assumptive close by asking something like "When you
get the quote for replacing the fence, could you also get a quote for
[insert different type of fence here like 'closeboard'] as I'm considering
a change and I'll pay the difference". The focus is then shifted from
whether they will pay or not and on to the possibility of an upgrade which
assumes that they'll pay for the replacement of the current fence.

Andy
www.mygardenproject.co.uk

Yes. You could come off very well here :-))

My neighbour knocked on my door one day and just said "Problem"
'What's your problem Tony? How can I help?'
"Not my problem. Yours"

What had happened was the wall he was building for a new garage, next to
mine, had been blown over in the night, smashed my asbestos roof and some of
the blocks 'could have' come onto my car. Too much junk in the roof stopped
any major damage to the car.

Asbestos roof was already leaking.

End result? A new roof, this time boarded and hot felted :-)))

I paid for the materials, Tony, a builder, did the work :-))

The car? A few scratches and it is so old it wasn't worth messing with :-))

I came off very well, but it does help to have good neighbours ;-))

Mike



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Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

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