Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

[Celestine]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

OK, post up here the basic schedule of costs you have incurred. include time estimates for your own labour. then let's go from there. I will help polish that into a prelim letter.

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Hi Celestine,
This is part of the email that i first sent to them detailing how i have been inconvenienced

We moved into this house 8 and a half years ago, and i have always had trouble with my drain. When it first blocked, (about 3 months after we moved in) I called a company out who came out to unblock it at a cost of £80ish at the time. The person who came out said it is probably a 'collapsed drain' and would be very costly to repair. So we decided, as we had 1 very young child, and another one on her way, we couldn't afford to have the repair done. So it became my 'job' to unblock the drain, it used to block at least 3 times per year, sometimes once every couple of months! Luckily I work on a golf course and was able to 'borrow' drainage rods from my place of work. It used to take me at least a couple of hours to unblock as i had no other tools apart from drainage rods and a hose pipe fed by my outside tap! When the drain was blocked we could smell it throughout the house, and it was even worse outside the house and you could smell it sometimes in the street. I have had to put up with the contents of my drain backing up to the manhole, forcing its way out and then it would seep down my steps and onto the lawn, of which i have had to replace part of, and try to separate it away from the rest of the lawn with some slate at the bottom of the steps. The worse thing about this whole episode is the very fact that I have had to stop my children from playing in the back garden, for fear of them catching something extremely nasty,which could have made them very ill, if not possibly life threatening! I have also had one or two fall outs with my neighbours over the smell of the drain too!
I would like compensating not only for the £80 I paid to the company that came to unblock my drain all those years ago, the removing of part of my lawn (£100) my loss of earnings for having to have today off from work (£80) and the £250 If I have to pay for the camera survey that i had conducted. I would also like compensating for my hard work and effort to unblock the drain over all those years. But the worst thing is, and i don't know how i could possibly put a price on this, is the very fact that my children haven't been able to play in the garden for 8 years!
I hate 'moaning' and personally can't stand the 'where theres a blame. theres a claim attitude' most people seem to have nowadays, but i am sure you will understand how this has affected us, and I hope you can see my point, and be sympathetic toward it.
I have attached some photos for you to look at.
Kind regards

Thanks for your help

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Hi Celestine,
I don't mean to bother you, but did you manage to have a think about a prelim letter?
Regards

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

anyone?

[Celestine]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Hi Funky

So very sorry, Ive been offline for a few days suffering from man flu.....and I'm a girl so it was REALLY bad!!

Right, Prelim Letter. Firstly lets take a look at that previous offer.

Dear Mr *****

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Re: damage to drainage/sewage pipe at ******** – compensation claim

I acknowledge receipt of your email dated 15/03/12 (below).

National Grid accepts that a gas service pipe installed by moling technique to your property has penetrated your drain, so causing the problems you have experienced since you moved to the property, and we acknowledge that you and your family have suffered inconvenience and experienced an unpleasant situation in relation to this. We have been advised by our Operational colleagues that upon being advised of the damage to your drain, National Grid arranged for your drain to be repaired in a timely manner. However, in the absence of any documentary evidence to substantiate the outlays you have made to alleviate the problems with your drain, we are unable to increase our offer that we made to you on 15/03/12. Therefore, National Grid maintains its offer of £400 as a full and final settlement for this claim. If you are able to provide us with documentary evidence in relation to your outlays, then we will reconsider our position.




Their previous "without prejudice' is derisory but at least it does acknowledge responsibility for the fault. Quick Q: Do you have any other communication that takes responsibility for the damage but is not marked Without Prejudice.

If not, then you can refer to the letter and the fact that they take responsibility. It's not really their place to dictate Without Prejudice tbh.

So, your letter:

Dear Mr/Mrs XXXXX

We have previously communicated about the issue of severe damage caused to my sewer by the installation of a National Grid owned gas main in 20XX.

I have lived at my property for the last 8 years and have endured regular disruption, inconvenience, loss of benefit and enjoyment of my family home and the deprival of access to a safe sanitary garden for my X children ages X and X.

Due to financial pressure, I was forced to undertake the rodding and cleaning of the affected pipe myself using borrowed rods. This had to be done at least 4 times per annum for 8 years. This equates to a minimum of 32 occasions that I had to spend my valuable free time rodding a sewer that had been damaged through negligence by National Grid.

To deny me compensation based on a lack of receipts going back 8 years is totally unreasonable even if I had paid a contractor to do such high cost work. It is high cost work for a good reason, because it is very unpleasant work.

National Grid have acknowledged responsibility for the damage to my sewer and for the consequential impact this has had on my family but unfortunately, National Grid have only offered £400 in total compensation.

Based on a likely average cost of £80 per rodding, my labour to date is valued at £2560. This does not take into account the loss of amenity, inconvenience and disruption that I have experienced.

I am giving you 14 days to respond to this letter positively.

I should also mention that this case is being actively discussed on the 30,000 member www.legalbeagles.info forum and, given the nature of the story, there is considerable media interest in my case, I hope National Grid will therefore seize this final opportunity to 'do the right thing' and properly compensate us for the considerable impact you have caused to our family life.

If you do not respond positively or do not reply I will write to you again in 14 days, if the issue is still not resolved by then I shall issue a claim against National Grid at XXXXX Court on the 9th July 2012.

Yours sincerely

XXXXXXX


Green text Optional???

What do you think?

Cel x

[Celestine]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

ps If you want, 3 days after you send the letter I can contact their media dept for a 'comment'. That should sharpen their attention a bit!

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Hi Celestine,
Thank you very much for getting back to me, that looks fantastic to me and i'll get on to it straight away. I shall have a look through all the correspondance to see if i have anything without 'without prejudice' on, but i don't think i have. One quick question, should this reply be emailed? As all other correspondence has been, or should it be sent via recorded delivery?
Kind Regards
FP

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Ignore

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

ps If you want, 3 days after you send the letter I can contact their media dept for a 'comment'. That should sharpen their attention a bit!

Hmmm that sounds interesting

[Celestine]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Personally, I'd send it recorded delivery, might be worth emailing it too.

Make sure you include all reference numbers in the hard copy letter, so it doesn't spend 8 days locating the correct department. Cc it the Chief Exec btw x

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Okie dokie, thanks. If your going to give them a call in a few days time, would it be wise me leaving the bit about my case being discussed on here out? I do like the paragraph though

[Celestine]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Personally, I'd keep it. They hate negative publicity!!

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Thanks Celestine, I emailed this off last night/this morning, and i have already had a response from the chief exec, saying he will personally look into it and get back to me as soon as possible. Fingers crossed something good will come of it.
Thanks again
FP

[Celestine]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

Oooh good to get a reply at least. Blimey....Their Chief Execs office work on Saturdays?!


Good Luck

[funkyphantom]

Re: Gas mains has damaged my Sewage drain. Help please?

No i got the email on friday