Furious , anybody any advice other than a stiff drink?

I would not be worried about contacting your Insurance Company.
If the water is now within the property i think you are failing in your duty of care (as far as the Insurance Co. will be concerned) not to advise them.
My Daughter is just getting away from something similar and her Insurance company are chasing the Metro Train Company for restitution because the problem emanated from a slippage on their property.
If it can be proven that the Council is at fault, the Insurance Co. will do their best to get their money back from them.

 

Hi Silu, I am so sorry for your on going situation.I can offer nothing more than sympathy for your situation , but clueless is doing an amazing job there.
What I will suggest is you mentioned the plants lost listing some, get out any photos of your garden and look to see what else is going to be missing, and start making lists with photographic evidence.
I had my whole front garden dug up by contractors 2 years ago, and 1 year later after being recompensed for what I could remember at that time ,suddenly started remembering plants/bulbs ,that were not there.

 

Hopefully the "judge" of my small claim will agree Kristen! GCC3663 thank you, hmm I seem to attract flooding as experienced a massive flood in 1994 when the River Clyde was flowing through my house. 2 1/2 years and £375,000 later the house was fixed so unfortunately I have had HUGE experience of how insurance companies operate.In 1994 we couldn't prove that we were nearly killed (no I'm not exaggerating) when a dam about 20 miles upstream of us was opened to protect it from breaking. The river rose 27 ft in total! so about 6 inches of water currently in my basement isn't a big deal in comparison. Post that flood we had our insurance raised enormously and when I tried to get quotes from other insurance companies they didn't want to know. I took legal advice about trying to apportion blame to the dam operators and was strongly advised to just let the insurance company pick up the tab .

 

Have you considered the posibility that you might just be a Rain God?

 

Thanks Pam, have quite a few photos of the rough area as it was this Spring so will take your excellent advice and go and study them to see exactly what I do/did have.

 

To answer you question Zigs, yes I have. When I used to play golf I seemed to have an amazing "talent" for ending up in water.A friend actually put a fishing net in my golf bag to assist me in the countless ball retrieval missions!

 

I used to have a 'rain shirt'. It was a rather stylish polo shirt that I'd wore many times without consequence but had also worn once when I went out on a date with a girl that turned out to be a witch. Since then, every time I wore that shirt it would pour down wherever I was. At the time my dad was still the owner of my land, and there was a bit of a local drought on, and my dad was worried about the land. I ceremoniously folded my rain shirt and gave it to my dad, instructing him to treat it with respect, and to wear it when he next went up the land. He did. It had been a red hot summers day without a cloud in sight. He got to the land, put on the rain shirt. By the time he'd walked the hundred yards or so down to where he kept his animals, the heavens opened and the land got a long overdue drenching.

Shortly after that, the rain shirt went missing. I think secretly my dad chucked it because he was sick of getting rained on every time he wore it.

 

Been there, done that ... but NOT got the Tee-shirt !!

 

Just one thing I could advise, and that is about really fixing the debt. Perhaps this is obvious enough but I've had to go through something similar a few times, and looking back I reckon the most effective thing of all was to send a certain type of letter. I work out a full estimate (as long as it's a reasonable estimate) of my costs up to the day I worked them out. I include all damage that I could reasonably say were caused by the authority, in a list with a total cost. Including all my postage, phone calls etc. I'll need photocopies (or e-mail print-outs) of evidence of my costs: in this case estimates from suppliers for replacing your plants, cost of labour (paying someone to re-plant them), post office receipts, phone records etc. I then send a letter (registered post) demanding compensation for these specific* costs from a specific date to the date I sent the letter. I include my bank account number. I then give them a reasonable time to find alternative cost estimates - say ten days, and a reasonable time to pay you - say 15 days - and inform them they will be liable to bank interest and your costs for recovering the debt after that date.

The letter is so that you can later claim bank interest for each day they delay paying you. I know bank interest is not much at the moment but the point for the council is that instead of facing a fixed amount of claim, they now face the prospect of accumulating costs - something that unnerves every corporation - even before you go to court. The letter is then something fixed in time and amount which, if they don't pay becomes a fixed debt (with accumulating interest). Having established the debt with that letter, you could then, if necessary go to court with a light heart because now the authority is on the back foot and has to prove they were not responsible for each item on the list. You could probably face that kind of discussion on your own, without a solicitor. If you make a court claim then you'd of course need copies of your previous pleas to the council, as clueless advised. Anyway, by fixing the claim, you show the authority you are prepared for court and you don't have to write or explain anything again to the council: you just refer back to that letter.

If you engage a solicitor he would be trying to do the same thing: fixing the debt. Now you can relax a little and concentrate on getting some photocopies which appear to back up the costs you are claiming. But once you know some major costs, then send off the claim. If you need to wait until you garden's dry, then fine. If the council sends you a contract which they want to you to sign before they'll pay you, then I'd advise against signing, since it could only be to the council's advantage.

*The idea is to make a very specific list of damages and a specific claim. That way you could later claim for other damage you might discover later.

Happy Christmas!

 

I'm sorry to hear of your plight and truly hope you can get some action asap

Regarding the Rhododendrons, try emailing Millais Nurseries. (www.rhododendrons.co.uk) I've had a few Rhodies from there and have always found them very helpful and you can check out their site for pricing on larger Rhododendrons too

 

Just a quick update for those kind souls who have been offering very good advice and sympathy. WELL I have had a rough quote in for all the plants I could potentially loose. It's way over £3000 for the plants alone, ie no labour cost included. The 2 Species Rhododendrons which I've had for many many years are impossible to replace like for like and the biggest/oldest I could get would be in the region of £500 EACH!!!!! The estimate is from Glendoick where many of my plants were originally purchased from and the owners (Cox family) are world experts on Rhododendrons, Peter Cox having introduced many species Rhododendrons to GB and written numerous books. Big snag is that I've been told by them that I might not know until late summer if they will survive or not. I thought I'd know about April. Confirmed I will have lost 1000s of both Daffodils and Snowdrops, not a chance they could withstand being submerged for 7 weeks...sigh.My making a claim is going to be that much more difficult if I don't know what's died and what hasn't until say August 2013. Definitely need some legal expert on this 1 I think. Anyway enough from me and Happy New Year everybody. here's to a MUCH drier 2013.

 

Wishing you a happy, drier 2013 too Silu,
Jenny

 

Just to let you kind souls who have been so helpful over my slight drama that the council turned up today with a mini digger and deblocked the culvert in less than 2 hours. I damn well knew it wouldn't take much to sort the problem, we aren't talking about constructing a motorway.However it took Fife Council precisely 43 days to do anything effective. The mini digger wasn't ANYWHERE near the power lines and even if the operator had wanted to end it all he wouldn't have been able to with the machine he was using. he muttered "....... ridiculous" under his breath! at the bally hoo about the lines. 1 slightly amusing incident was that the big cheese who had come to oversee the works ie stood doing nothing got a puncture coming along our road because of the massive pot holes which have been created. I didn't offer to help him change his tyre...funny that!The water is now back where it should be but I'm left with a portion of my garden stinking of rotting vegetation. I have an appointment to meet with my solicitor tomorrow! We also await Scottish Water who now need to come and remove 100s of tonnes of gravel in our stretch of the burn which had built up behind the blockage. By the time they've cleared the gravel I don't reckon we'll have any grass verges left....it did look quite pretty last Spring!

 

Oh that's really pretty! What does it look like now then???

 

That looks so lovely. I cannot imagine just how gutted you must be feeling right now,
so sorry Silu,
Jenny