For the next three days I talked with
builders, surveyors, solicitor and everyone else I could think of
that could help me sort out the house. I had six weeks until David
and Linda returned. My parting words had been “I will fix it” and
my word is my bond.
The solicitor gave me the insurance
details I needed and the first of what was to become much too many
conversations started. My surveyor arrived a week later to make his
assessment and to draw up a Schedule of works. This I received
another week later and dutifully gave to the builders who were to put
in their estimates, two weeks had passed and the house had not been
touched. Nor had the insurance company responded.
Despite my plan to remove David and
Linda from the trauma of the rebuild, David, a seasoned traveller was
now having panic attacks daily. I was receiving text messages written
in the middle of the night as he paced the floor of the apartment
unable to sleep or woken from yet another nightmare. I received phone
calls as he thought of something else that was buried in the rubble,
something else he had thought about that would need attending to. I
was working all day, making phone calls all evening and answering
text messages in the early hours of the morning. The strain was
making me ill.
As the third week began, while rushing
in the rain, Peter stepped on a tiny piece of wood outside the house
and fell. At first we thought he had simple strained his ankle but an
X-ray confirmed it was broken.
I now not only had my own work to sort
out but the Taxi company to run virtually single handedly, a
destroyed house to fix and despite my continuing calls as I tried
again and again to get a response from the boys insurance company, no
further information or commitment from them.
Both builders quotes were now in, the
surveyors bill had arrived and I still had not heard anything from
the insurers. Every time I called, I got through to a new person, a
person who would ask me for the insurance details, the policy number,
the name of the driver, the name of the policy holder, the date of
the accident, the registration and make of the car. At the end of all
this I would again need to explain who I was! This new someone would
then have to look up my file. To each new someone I was required to
explain the events from the very beginning, time and time again. I
was getting exhausted.
The only good thing that had happened
so far was that Peter had found the money that David had left on the
mantle top. It had fallen into the fire but had been soaked when the
fire brigade put the fire out!! The bank had changed it instantly for
new bills, the insurance company were not so instant!!!
At last someone assigned a young man
called Paul Grant from Cunningham Lindsey to my case. When Paul
eventually arrived to assess the damage, I handed him everything I
had accumulated to date, the surveyors report, the builders quotes,
the details of the flights and accommodation as well as e-mailed
quotes from three bed and breakfasts locally to show that sending my
tenant abroad has been the cheaper option.
To my absolute relief he gave me the go
ahead to assign Colin as my builder and told me there shouldn't be a
problem with my tenants being away as long as it was not for more
than six weeks. I assured him that the return flights had been booked
but that the house may not be complete by then in which case they
would need to go to alternative accommodation. He agreed, we shook
hands and he left.
Welsh builders are absolutely amazing
in a crisis!! Colin and I met the next morning at the house and by
tea time the first of the deliveries were arriving. As everything
needed to be removed from the lounge, plus the bedroom above before
work could start, I spent that evening packing everything I could
into banana boxes and storing them into the only room still use-able
in the house.
Linda's bedroom slowly filled as box
after box of David's bedroom was packed and moved out. David, apart
from being a collector of fine art and unusual artefacts, also
collects books, hundreds and hundreds of books.
There are book cases in his bedroom,
book cases in both lounges, huge books, small books, old books, new
books, each book was taken down dusted off and packed before being
moved. Banana boxes filled with books are not light things to move!!
After the books came the the furniture,
the bedroom had to be entirely empty as the ceiling had to come down,
I moved the bed, the side tables, the chairs, the draws full of
clothes, the shoes. I felt like I had invaded their privacy to the
utmost degree but the belongings had to be moved and with Peter's
broken foot, I was the only one who was there to do it.
After the bedroom I tackled the broken
lounge. Kris and Peter had moved most of the boulders to one side
before Peter had broken his foot, but I had left all the breakages in
place until the insurance company's assessor had been. Now everything
had to be moved. The state of the art TV with its broken screen, the
DVD player and Sky box all thick with dust and tiny stones. The
stereo with its broken speakers, the crushed printer, the destroyed
shredder, the huge Moroccan cracked mirror, the dirt and oil covered
Egyptian rug.
Everywhere I looked I found more broken
pieces, wooden cats with ears missing, the beautiful blue puppet
elephant with his neck dislocated and his legs split, plants lay
dying on the ground thrown out of their crushed pots of delicate
china. The amazing Turkish pouffe and its matching foot stool where I
had happily sat and chatted with my tenants over a glass of wine were
torn, the nest of tables where David and Linda had rested their
coffee mugs were in pieces. Bit by bit I cleared the room leaving
until very last the split book case and of course all the books!!
It was the early hours of the morning
before I finished, the settees and larger furniture I left for the
builders to remove. All were broken, all needed to go to the skip
that would be arriving in the morning. Dirty, dusty, saddened and
exhausted I returned home for a few hours sleep before it all started
again.
The next morning the scaffolding was
erected, the boards were removed and a huge tarpaulin was hung in
their place to stop the worst of the rain entering the house.
The roof was braced into position and
the front wall was taken down to the floor.
The scattered huge stones were sorted
into 'use-able' and 'not use-able' piles, rubble, old guttering,
destroyed climbing plants, trellises and shrubs were hurled into the
skip. My tiny Tigra was removed from my garage to make way for the
settees that were taken out of the house, work had begun.
David was still having nightmares and
panic attacks and what I had hoped would be a restful time away was
turning into a nightmare as both Linda and David, trying to deal with
their own personal demons, bickered and argued. Colin worked day and
night building up the walls with breeze blocks. Getting David and
Linda back into a dry house was the biggest priority and the stone
cladding would be built up once they were home. I paid Colin the
difference to build a wall instead of a fence along the front of the
house as neither David, Linda nor myself would have ever felt safe in
the house after the severity of the crash, but this too would wait
until the house was solid.
As the brick work was completed I
received the first of three invoices from Colin. These I dutifully
forwarded to Cunningham Lindsey and Providence Insurance Company.
On the 8th of March David
arrived back having dropped Linda at a friends. He needed to be back,
needed to be involved as the unknown was damaging him as much as the
actual damage done to the house. I offered to put him in the local
bed and breakfast but he insisted on staying at the house, the walls
and ceiling had been plastered that day, it would take a few days to
dry but the house was now water tight and he wanted to go 'home'.
Linda arrived a few days later, again I
offered them alternative accommodation, but the plaster would be dry
soon they theorised, once that was done Colin would send in the
painters and decorators and the house would be basically live-able
again. Work could then begin outside as the entire front was still
protected with the huge tarpaulin!
Together we wrote out a list of all the
damaged, broken and dust destroyed items I had collected or removed.
This I sent off to Cunningham Lindsey along with the other costs that
had been amassed due to the crash. I phoned and e-mailed and was told
a payment had been raised for an interim payment of £2,500, enough
to clear the credit card bill that had just arrived for David and
Linda's flight and accommodation away. I gave David all the details I
could think of, sent off the second invoice from Colin and set off on
a pre booked trip to Morocco for my 52nd Birthday.
Peter's foot was still not good, the
strain on our personal lives due to my excess work load and a huge
depression Peter was suffering from due to a traumatic car crash a
few months earlier, did not do much to make our trip relaxing. I
received phone calls from Colin asking when he was going to receive
any monies, I got texts from David saying the builders had stopped
work, and no cheque had arrived. I worried about things I had no
control over, lost control of the things I did, I pretended
everything was OK while inside I withdrew as much as Peter.
When I arrived back in the UK the
barrage of phone calls began again. They had no paperwork they said,
Cunningham Lindsey hadn't given them any details. I sent everything I
had again and again. I requested again and again, I was cheerfully
told a cheque had been sent out to the surveyor and another one had
been sent to me. Again I had to retell the story, explain the extent
of the damage, explain that £2,500 only covered the accommodation
expenses and no work could be done until the builder got paid. We had
yet to start buying things for the inside! I received the cheque for
£2,500 and waited for the rest but the builders money was still not
received. When I called I was told it hadn't been cleared, or it was
still in process, or they were waiting for the parer work. I sent the
paperwork again , I sent a plea of desperation to both Cunningham’s
and Providence.
All this time David had been camped in
the lounge downstairs while Linda tried to move around her tightly
packed bedroom. While they had been away they had paid the rent as I
was still providing suitable accommodation, now they only had half a
house with no sign of when things would change, I called the
insurance company and told them I had no rent coming in.
The stresses and strains were affecting
us all. I went back into counselling on the advice of my doctor.
David and Linda were seeing their own doctors for the same reasons.
Tensions between us were reaching breaking point as they asked, I
called and nothing seemed to happen. At last Colin called to say he
had received his money and was prepared to start work again. The boys
were back on site the next day, the decorating was finished and the
fireplace and floor could be laid.
I consulted with David as to what he
would like in the house to try to make amends of all the delay and
uncertainty. David, however was by now so highly wired he couldn't
decide what he wanted. A carpet layer was arranged then cancelled as
he decided floor boards and a rug would be nicer in the bedroom, the
cancelled carpet layer was rebooked to strip the floor.
A carpet was priced for the lounge but
at the last minute it was decided a wooden floor would cost nearly
the same and all plans changed once again. The fire place changed
from the original style surround, to a pot belly burner, back to the
original surround and was in the end left open while the floor was
laid. Still the money for their contents did not arrive. David asked
again and again what was happening, why was what I was telling him
not happening. Peter and I used our savings so they could buy some
furniture to sit on.
I called again about finances, I
pleaded, I was assigned a complaints officer, I sent e-mails, I cried
myself to sleep, I broke promises to David and Linda, I took to heart
all their anger which although was not directed at me was still
thrown in my direction as they had nowhere else to send it.
It was with overwhelming relief that a
cheque arrived on April 29th, three whole months after the
crash for what at the time I perceived to be payment for not only
David and Linda's claim but also for my own lost rental monies, the
additional expenses, lost earning through the days off work to meet
with builders and assessors. I paid off all the outstanding bills,
cleared my credit card, handed over David and Linda's contents claim
and was amazed to find I still had a little left over. There was no
letter with the cheque, no explanation, just a cheque. I sent an
e-mail of thanks to both Cunninghams and Providence, sent off the
final builders invoice and began to relax.
Two weeks later the builder called to
say he had received no money and could I chase it up. I sent an
e-mail to Providence, I sent a second to Cunningham. The outstanding
amount was £5, 262.00, could they please settle directly with the
builder as they had done before.
It was another two weeks before I
received the e-mail saying the builders money had been included in
the cheques I had received four weeks earlier. The money I had
already given to Linda and David, had paid the floor man, had
advanced to gardeners. Even if I spent every penny they had given me,
included the money paid for lost rent, the lost days from work, the
extra fuel I had claimed for as I drove back and forth from the house
each week I still wouldn't have enough to pay the builder.
My councillor expressed her concern to
my mental state, something had to give, I was on a roller coaster of
emotions and couldn't keep up the strain much longer. In final
desperation I wrote to the insurance company pouring out my despair,
my anger, my feeling of helplessness.
“Dear Sir
It is in absolute despair that I read
your e-mail below. It has taken you four weeks to inform me that the
builders monies is included in the payment that I had presumed was
for my tenants. Money that has already been handed over to them so
they can purchase the replacement items listed to you in previous
e-mails.
If I follow your e-mail correctly you
have paid out a total of £39,250.00
Yet the expenses submitted
to you so far are a total of £43,512.00
Difference £4,262.00
Even taking away my
personal expenses, my lost rent for two months, the money needed to
repair the garden, or even the fireplace that your client destroyed,
I still have a shortfall or are you suggesting I ask my tenants to
return the money already paid to them which they feel they are
entitles to.
I did not crash into a
home nearly killing the tenants inside, your client did.
I did not destroy
thousands of pounds of personal belongings, heirlooms and keep sakes
beneath tons of rubble, your client did.
I did not cause untold
emotional distress, sleepless nights, panic attacks and nightmares
that are being suffered by my tenants and myself through all of this,
your client did.
Your client took out
insurance with your company. Insurance that guaranteed the fact that
should he cause damage to any other person or their property, that
person would be compensated in full and yet from the e-mail you have
sent to me I can only surmise that you feel that we, the victims in
all this, are not worthy of payment. That you, the company are happy
with what you see as a final settlement and that we, the victims,
deserve to suffer a loss of finances as well as the peace of mind
awarded to most human beings.
Could you please send me a
cheque for the outstanding amount.
If you feel we are not
worthy of this amount please send me an itemised itinerary of what
you have paid in direct correlation to the items destroyed so that I
can discover what parts of my claim and that of my tenants you feel
we deserve to do without.
I can not reiterate enough how
distressing and upsetting this whole business has become. As I stated
earlier, neither my tenants nor myself are in the least bit
responsible for this claim, we have done everything asked of us and
have put up with immense discomfort and stress. I feel we are being
treated shamefully by your company should you not forward the
outstanding amount.
Yours
K. Falconer
The returning e-mail said
they would look into the details of my claim and ask Cunningham
Lindsey to re-assess their findings. A week went past and I received
another e-mail saying they were still looking into the case. Today I
received an e-mail saying upon reflection they would raise their
offer. They added that Cunningham’s had awarded my tenants a
percentage of what my tenants had claimed for but because I had
inadvertently 'overpaid them', they were prepared to add a bit more
to my personal claim. If I add this final offer to the money I have
left I am still left with a short fall of £900.
I have not claimed for the
hours I spent clearing the house, I have not claimed for the hours
spent calling or writing e-mails as my solicitor advised, I have
amassed therapy bills and could have insisted on David and Linda
having alternative accommodation when they returned and charged the
insurance company but I have not. David and Linda are still finding
things that they thought were OK broken as dust has permeated every
thing electrical and it is only now they are discovering this.
Surely it is not too much
to ask that our basic costs are covered, as I wrote in my letter to
the insurance company, neither my tenants nor myself are in the least
bit responsible for this claim, we have done everything asked of us
and have put up with immense discomfort, sleepless nights and stress.
We are all receiving medication that again we have not claimed
compensation for.
I know they are trying to
save every penny that they can but I still I feel we are being
treated shamefully by an insurance company that should know better.
As for my friendship with
David and Linda, I hope it can be rebuilt over time, there is no
price the insurance company can ever pay out for that loss.
Sorry about the lack of
photos for this Blog but photos have been the last thing on my mind
xxx
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