Sons friend broke window with football, what to do??

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yvonkey

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My son and his friends were playing in the garden at the weekend and one of his friends kicked the ball and broke our sitting room window. When we returned from shopping the boys mother came over and apologised and offered to pay for the damages but then said that maybe we could claim it on our house insurance.

This is new territory for me, I think if the shoe had been on the other foot we would pay to fix the window and perhaps dock our sons pocket money but I dont really now what the done thing is??

The cost to replace the window is going to be €340 and that is after ringing around loads of places. I want to be neighbourly but it is an amount that we just dont have at the moment. What would other people do in this situation??

Thanks.
 
Well if you allowed your son and his friends play in the garden then i think you have to take the hit or at least half the responsibility.

It would be a different story if the boys were playing somewhere (not on your land) and the window was broken.
 
I was thinking that alright, thing is that we didn't allow them. We were out at the time and got a call to come back. My son did say that they were all playing ball but his friend was on the road and kicked it towards the house. Any other views?? I would like to pay half for peace sake but my other half thinks they are liable.
 
I'm inclined to agree with mro.
If you sanctioned the football playing you effectively took the risk.
Maybe you could ask her to pay €100 towards it???
Checking out the house insurance is an idea.
 
Just to explain clearer, we are talking about a standard small front garden here... not enough room to play anything really, they were on the road using out gate as goal (as far as I am aware).
 
Thanks Mommah, we did not sanction the football playing, we were not in the house. Our son and his friends have been told hundreds of times not to play ball in the garden. Does this make a difference??

Thanks.
 
Our son is 13 and his friend is 15 (feel really bad for him because he is doing his junior cert at the moment and has hardly been out at all)
 
Its a tough call.
If you son was playing with him I would think he was 50% responsible.
So maybe 50:50??
 
The Insurance generally have Glazing firms they deal with ,if you ring them they will come around and fix your window without any cost to you,worth a ring.As for who should pay ?If the Insurance pay, its up to them to recover their losses.50/50 might be the way to go otherwise in the next months your boy might break something while flinnging eggs and flour celebrating his friends straight A's in leaving cert
 
Last edited:
mick1960 said:
The Insurance generally have Glazing firms they deal with ,if you ring them they will come around and fix your window without any cost to you,worth a ring.As for who should pay ?If the Insurance pay, its up to them to recover their losses.
Click to expand...

Excess and affect on policy also need to be considered. Need to read policy document carefully before claiming.
 
The boys mother in my opinion has the best solution. It was an accident. Make a claim on your house insurance
The boys mother will pay for the upfront damages as the insurance could take a few weeks to come through. When the cheque arrives give the lady back the money she paid. That's the neighbourly thing to do.

She sounds like a reasonable neighbour to me. If there is an excess to pay then split the cost.
These things happen. It could have easily been your son.

You will be neighbours for a very long time. Possible generations.Think of this too.
 
Pay the lot if you can't get it through insurance, if the neighbour offers to help out well and good, but don't think you should force the matter
 
Good point well made Niallers, I just didn't know what the right thing to do was. I will contact our house insurers and see what the situation is. I will pop over to them now and tell them it is sorted, lets hope he does get straight 'A's Mick1960!

Thanks for the advise everyone :)
 
If my son broke someones window. I would insist on paying for it. I'd be mortified.

I may not be worth while claiming on the house insurance. We had a window broken a couple of years ago and claimed on the house insurance to have it replaced. We were only paid about E150 after the excess.

When our insurance renewal came it was pretty high and I rang around to get a cheaper quote. I could have saved over E300 except that we had made a claim in the past 3 years so the new company wouldn't accept us.

I would talk to the neighbour again and if they won't pay the lot then 50:50 is probably fair.
 
i have a question along these lines too! some local kids were playing in the garden at the back of our house(not their garden either they jumped the gate) one of them tried to jump over the fence into my garden and his feet went through the fence leaving a massive hole!
we were in the house at the time and saw it all happen.found the kid who did it and called round to his parents.didnt really want them to pay for the damage just wanted to let them know what had happened as the lad was playing in someone elses garden without their permission and could have injured himself jumping my fence!they were really nice about the while thing and have offered to pay for it.was just wondering what others think would you take the money or just fix it yourself? the fence will only cost about 40e!!
 
Thanks Gabsdot,

I would have been of the same thinking of you. If my son broke a window I would have definately replaced it and in fairness my neighbour did offer to replace it but I wanted be fair.

I called the insurance company and they said that they would cover it... not sure of the excess...We have never claimed on our insurance before now.

I just came back from their house now and she offered to pay any excess. I just hate the hassle.
 
Claim on your house insurance (that's what you have it for) and ask the child's parent to pay the excess. This happened me some years ago and thats what we did. Premium will not go up.
 
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