Police damage to rental property

Reply to the comment left by "Farah Damji" at "12/05/2014 - 18:34":

NOTE 6A of the PACE guidance says no compensation for damage caused by lawful entry. The preference for settling damage claims is only where the entry is not lawful, e.g. wrong address.

"6A Whether compensation is appropriate depends on the circumstances in each case. Compensation for damage caused when effecting entry is unlikely to be appropriate if the search was lawful, and the force used can be shown to be reasonable, proportionate and necessary to effect entry.
If the wrong premises are searched by mistake everything possible should be done at the earliest opportunity to allay any sense of grievance and there should normally be a strong presumption in favour of paying compensation."

The police entered a property I rented on a lawful warrant. The door was solid teak and the damage was extensive so much so the door and frame had to be replaced. It wasn't a standard door, it had to made to order. I claimed against the building insurance, the excess was applied to the tenant and I understand the insurers recovered their costs from the police. If you can let the insurers deal with the argument of who pays and recover your excess from the tenant?

I have this done to my property few times and never got paid anything, i wrote a letter of complaint to the chief constable every time and the reply each time was, we wanted so and so, we did knock on the door several times and the tenant did not open the door, and we had evidence that he was in and he would not answer the door. Your tenant is at fault and we(the police) is not responsible. With this past experience I would not waste time writing letters unless you can prove police was in the wrong. My advise would be to get the repairs done and re-let the property as soon as you can. As, end of the day its your loss.

Reply to the comment left by "Ravi gupta" at "22/05/2014 - 17:47":

I wouldn`t lose heart. You may win one one day. Many have been compensated including myself. . Just keep a template letter and alter the dates and the address each time to suit the circumstances . Then bung it in the post. For under a quid and 10 mins of your time you could save yourself £500. Well worth the time expended in my book. Unless your hourly rate is charged at over £3000 per hour of course.

Hi, This happened to me last year and I'm pleased to say it was sorted surprisingly quickly and painlessly. I just sent an invoice to the Police, referenced the incident number, date, officers pointing out that nothing untoward was found and they sent me a cheque for full payment a few days later. A new sepia fire door supplied and fitted at approx £400. This was Sussex Police and their policy is if no arrests are made or evidence seized they pay for the damage. Good luck.

This happened to me many years ago.

I claimed for a new door on an emergency repair policy that I had in force at that time and paid a £100 excess fee to the insurance company.

I then wrote to the police and I eventually (after a second letter) received my compensation. This is the letter I wrote. Feel free to use it as a template and change it according to your particular circumstances.

================================================================

Chief Superintendent Sharon Rowe
Edmonton Police Station
462 Fore Street
Edmonton
London
N9 0PW

Dear Chief Superintendent,

Re: Compensation Claim - Damage to Back Door PROPERTY ADDRESS
In Attendance - PC YE212. CAD Number: CAD8786/26May2006.

I hope that you are the right person to whom I should be addressing this letter. If you are not the right person, would you please accept my apologies and forward this letter to the person that has the authority to deal with this issue.

I am writing to claim £100 compensation for the damage sustained to my property by one of your officers in respect of an incident that occurred on Friday 26th May 2006. The amount I am claiming is the excess payment that I had to make to the insurance company before they would fit a new back door to the property (the old one was damaged beyond repair by your officer). I have enclosed a copy of a receipt from Homeserve evidencing this payment for your records. All the details of the case held on your computer database can be brought up using the CAD reference shown above.

A new door was finally fitted on 9th July and I am claiming compensation from the Police because:-

1. Nobody gave me any warning of the intention to force access to the property, irrespective of the circumstances. My next-door neighbour, Mr X, at XYZ Road, showed your officers a letter from me with my mobile telephone number shown at the top of that letter. Mr X pleaded with your officers to ring me before doing anything drastic. From what I can make out, your officers ignored this sound advice. Your officers did not make any effort to contact me or leave a message on my mobile telephone and thus give me the chance to talk to him/her prior to taking such drastic action.

2. Your officers’ ‘gung-ho’ approach and inability to give me fair warning has meant I am now personally out of pocket to the tune of £100 for something which I had no control over and, had I been informed, I could’ve helped sort the matter out, thus avoiding this claim for compensation.

3. My tenant has been extremely upset by this whole affair and this has caused irreparable damage to the Landlord/Tenant relationship. She has threatened to sue me for breaching the terms of the tenancy agreement (she is unable to enjoy peaceful occupation of the property).

The point is that had somebody, anybody, rang me on my mobile telephone and either spoken to me or left me a message to ring them back I would have been able to make the necessary arrangements to get to the property within one hour, with the keys, and we could’ve resolved any query quickly and amicably.

The outcome that I would like to see is a compensation payment of £100 made payable to “YOUR NAME” and a letter of apology for the inconvenience and distress caused to NAME OF YOUR TENANT at TENANT’S ADDRESS sent to him/her, copy to me for my file.

Please respond with your intended actions soonest.

Yours sincerely,

YOUR NAME