legal advice / price cheque for a paint job
Frank
2,379 Posts
Some contractors fixed the balconies on the rear side of the building we live in and managed to splatter our car with cement. This had already happened last fall but we hadn't moved the car since and I had thought that all that grey stuff was just bird shit.ou rlandlord gave me a phone number of the owner of the company who did the work on the house and when I called, the guy was totally uncooperative, saying "I didn't damage your car and I don't think my workers did anything wrong, I always tell them to be careful..."It's a 4 year old Suzuki Grand Vitara and we don't normally give much of a shit what our car looks like as long as it rolls but why let someone fusk it up like that and not try and do something about it?How much does a paint job cost?What's the legal procedure? Call the cops to get a police report and then go to small claims court?I feel a bit silly asking this here but I don't know who else I should annoy with a pair of stupid questions like this...Thanx!Frank
Comments
2) get an estimate of a paint job, send it to the contractor and say he has two options, either pay you that amount immediately, or find someone else to paint it who you must approve of. tell him he has 5 days to give you an answer or you are suing in small claims court and making claims/complaints with better business bureau, angie's list, yelp, and any place else you can think of.
3) sue in small claims court. it is very easy. you do not need a lawyer.
you do not need a police report, but a witness would be nice. or at least someone who can come with you to small claims court and corroborate that the contractors were in your neighborhood.
Maaco claims $300 for a paint job. I would put that in the dollar bin of paint jobs.
From my extensive knowledge of the legal system stemming from being unemployed with nothing better to do than watch court shows in the afternoon, I think a police report is a good first step. It's presumably unbiased third party documentation of your incident.
Take pictures of everything.
Then you could go back to the guy with your police report and say you're ready to file in small claims and see if he changes his tune. Then do it if he doesn't.
I had a similar situation in which debris from the load of a semi on the expressway (small rocks and dust and crap) cracked my windshield.
I got the name off the side of the truck and tried to contact them several times in which case their receptionist/dispatcher/whatever would take my info and have them call me back, which of course they never did.
I went to the highway patrol and filed a report. The trooper was nice enough to call the company for me and let them know that I was happy to work with them outside of court or insurance to correct the situation.
That got their attention. I got a new windshield.
Moral of the story, they're probably hoping you'll go away, so you'll probably have to get the point across that you are not going away.
A real auto paint job, I think, is around $800 - $1000.
I would think it's quite hard to prove it was them if it was done last fall and you are only acting now.
yeah, it happened last fall, probably October.
The car's been sitting on our rented parking spot all that time because it wasn't operatable. We still had it full of African diesel fuel which doesn't have the needed additive that keeps it from turning into jello when the weather turns cold...
Don't think it would be doubtable that the cement got there in any other way than the construction workers dropping it on there. I guess it could also be established that it's the same cement used on the balconies without calling CSI to the scene.
I passed the damn car everytime I'm taking out the garbage but I didn't really look at it that closely.