Payment under duress

[legalhelp987]

A company is refusing to give back my belongings entrusted to them, despite the quoted bill being paid in full - because they say we damaged something and they want it paid for. We have no idea how much it is going to be, and we have no terms and conditions, just a quote for the initial work

If we pay under duress in order to get our items back, is that recoverable if we then go on to sue?

Thank you

[R0b]

Rather than paying them and trying to recover the money by issuing legal proceedings, why not bypass that and simply send a letter before action stating that you will take legal action if they do not return your belongings?

It is a risk paying them and then trying to sue as the courts may be reluctant to order them to pay you back if you have wilfully paid them. Even if you wanted to go down this route, you should make it clear that any payment is being made as a result of duress and simply because you require the return of your belongings immediately, and that you intend to recover the overpaid amount by commencing legal proceedings.

If you don't need your belongings immediately, I would suggest that the first option would be more suitable.

[legalhelp987]

It is because we are 100s of miles away and they can do whatever they like with the stuff in the meantime, if we do that, we would be scared of them destroying our things.

[legalhelp987]

what would happen if they refused payment with a protest note?

[R0b]

You are going to have to explain the background to your situation otherwise its really difficult to understand what you are up against.

Are they a storage business?
what is it that they say you have damaged? and what evidence do they have that you have supposed damaged something of theirs - have you seen it?

They can't just destroy your goods as they belong to you and if they do so then you have a right to the value of those goods so I presume you have an inventory of what they have?

it sounds like they are trying to hold a lien over your goods in return for payment of a debt. I am not so sure that can happen because if there is no contract and this appears to be a bailment relationship i.e. property temporarily transferred to another in return for payment, then a lien does not generally arise.

I don't know why you are asking if they refused payment with a protest note? Either they accept your payment and you seek to recover it with no guarantees at all, or you take them to court for holding your goods unlawfully and see whether they counterclaim for the money they are allegedly saying is owed.

[legalhelp987]

Thank you, and yes it is storage. They were meant to deliver to us same day, did not do this and then their car got damaged, We paid in full for the move before this, and now they are saying we cannot have our goods unless we pay for the damage, but we have no idea how much it may be, and we have not agreed to liability

Edited to add, the damage was from them attempting to run a person over whilst forcefully taking their truck back half full as they did not give one person chance to unload

There are also daily storage costs but again, we did not agree to them taking our things back in the first place and paid in full before they did the second trip, inclusive of that.

Will look at bailment now - we are worried about the items being taken

[R0b]

I have to admit that is a bit of a strange story, why would they try to drive off if they knew that your goods were still on the vehicle? That doesn't really make sense to me.

They cannot deny ownership of the goods as they belong to you. I suspect the only way of getting your goods back is to bring the matter to court, and your starting point is to send a letter before action as I mentioned above.

Your claim against the storage company will be wrongful interference with goods under the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977

[legalhelp987]

They are trying to extort us and blackmail now, by saying we can only have our things if we pay for the damages - which has no timeframe of any quote or cost

The damages were caused by them reversing back over someone who obviously tried to defend themselves - all on tape

The issues are conflated. We have paid for the move, and they breached both contracts - new and old

They stole the goods by literally coming back with menaces, pushing someone off the back of the van from 4ft and shutting the door on half the items and driving away

Luckily we have it all on tape

[R0b]

Then if you have it all on tape I don't see why you are sat on the fence as to what you should do. If there is clear evidence of what has gone on and they are trying to blackmail / extort money from you then you simply issue a claim against the storage company and/or the people who are holding it.

Your only question is to value the contents and list the goods that they hold.