[Tom Bennett]

You are not liable for the whole cost of the carpet, if this went to court, you (if proven to be your fault) would have to pay for the cost of the carpet minus depreciation. Ie if the carpet is 4-5yrs old the value would be approx; 50% of that amount.
It will be even less if older, which is fair when you think of it, why should you replace an old carpet with a new one. If your insurance company gets involved they will cost the same way, which will probaly be a lot less than your £500.0 excess.
Just something for you to think about, perhaps you should mention this to your customer and come to a financial agreement if all else fails.
Regards.
Tom.

[Paul Redden Countryfresh]

Did Shaun give his verdict???

[Simon Gerrard]

You are not liable for the whole cost of the carpet, if this went to court, you (if proven to be your fault) would have to pay for the cost of the carpet minus depreciation. Ie if the carpet is 4-5yrs old the value would be approx; 50% of that amount.
It will be even less if older, which is fair when you think of it, why should you replace an old carpet with a new one. If your insurance company gets involved they will cost the same way, which will probaly be a lot less than your £500.0 excess.
Just something for you to think about, perhaps you should mention this to your customer and come to a financial agreement if all else fails.
Regards.
Tom.

Tom,
That is a popular fallacy but is miles away from reality. If a situation like this goes 'legal' and trying to say, ' I ruined your carpet but I'm only going to pay for half a new one,' is one sure fire way of making that happen,so you could end up replacing the carpet and having to pay your and customers legal costs. Better just to pay for the new carpet and save a lot of money.

Simon

[Tom Bennett]

Simon, on the number of occasions that I have had to give evidence in small claims court cases, the judgements have all been the same. All the judges have taken the depreciation into consideration, nobody has been given the cost of a new item, (unless less than 12 months old.
Regards.
Tom.

[Simon Gerrard]

Tom,
I accept that, (to a degree) however if the case is at court there is every chance you will end up paying both your own and the Plaintiff's legal and court costs and if not that at least your own, which may well be a good deal more than you've saved having allowed the matter to go to litigation.
My son is a Commercial Litigation Lawyer and his firm charge out his services at £125.00 per hour

There is also a matter of honour, or professionalism to be considered here. If you wreck some one's furnishings you should stump up the cost of replacing them.

Simon

[Bob Allen]

So has Shaun been out to give you his verdict....yet?

[Billy Russell]

£125 per hour!!!!!! I wouldn't behaving that Simon!!!!!

He's nearly on the same hourly rate as you!!!!!!!!!!


 

[graeme marchbank]

That carpet looks to me as it had a fault before you started, although not a fan of DF and would not normally agitate a Berber (unless it's a man-made commercial tile) giving a good vac is a must and light adgitation should not pull the loops out.

Sounds more like a cat to me....

[Phil @ Extreme Clean]

Did Shaun give his verdict???

Shaun gave his verdict yes and said it was the carpet and nothing i done could of damaged it and i couldn't of forseen what happened. Sean was excellent in giving his opinion to me and the customer and i'm more than happy with the outcome. The customer was impressed with Seans Knowledge as was I and it's a learning curve. All in all a good result i only have to pay the custy back what i charged so i'm happy and Dry fusion were great OH AND JUST TO CLARIFY NOT SLATED DF ONCE with my MEGAFONEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! haha.

[Simon@arenaclean]

 :)Good result well handled

[Phillip Mold]

So it was the carpets fault, not your choice of system.

Ok


 Fine, so how will you clean the next berber you come across?

[wynne jones]

With respec, as they say on here, what else was he gonna say?

[Chris Hawkes]

With respec Wynne, I would hope that where there is obvious operator blame, the (albeit partial) inspector would say it how it is, a resolution suitable to all could be found and everyone could move on, a little bit wiser and in the operator's case, a little bit poorer.  I don't know Sean. Do you?

[jasonl]

Well if the OP damaged  the carpet , then I have damaged every berber I have ever cleaned !

[Steve Weatherley]

I dont know Shaun and dont use the DF system but cant help thinking that he would have been committing commercial suicide by admitting it was a problem with the system. I expected him to say it was the carpets fault. You were lucky that you didn't have to pay towards a new carpet or all the cost even.
I also think that you handled the case well so a good result for you.