Legal advice - Fined for being stuck in a lift...

GSDog said:
There are two groups of us out here; Group 1 and Group 2.

Group 1 were the 8 of us stuck in the lift.
Group 2 are staying at the apartment where the lift is. Group 2 were not in the lift at the time of its failure.

Group 2 paid a £200 deposit upon arrival which is meant to be refunded providing there is no damage. However, the company are saying that they are keeping the £200 deposit and charging an additional £80 on top in order to cover the engineers fees which are £280 in total.
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I do ponder how they can be charged when none were present.
If a visitor breaks something they are responsible, not the owner.
 
8 men (assuming men cos OcUK) stuck in a lift....

How long till you had finished each other off ?
 
Something not right here??? :confused:

How can you be fined for the mechanical failure of a form of transport!! :rolleyes:

WTF! The lift is a form of transport that is the responsibility of the landlord who should have insurance to cover such an event, should it ever happen. :confused:

I dont get it, was the lift a 6 capacity and you had 8 in ??

Why did the alarm fail?

Many questions ????? :rolleyes:
 
The argument being made isn't that the lift was overloaded anyway. Even if it was overloaded it would have just stayed put rather than break down halfway.

They've got a knackered lift and you're a convenient fall guy to pay for a service.
 
GSDog said:
I'm currently in Dublin on holiday with friends. Last night 8 of us got into a passenger lift at my friends apartment block. The lift suddenly came to a stop between the second and first floors and said it was 'Out of service'.

We spent 10 minutes pushing the emergency button but it didn't seem to be doing anything, so I dialled 112 (the emergency number) and requested the fire brigade. It was a further 30 minutes or so before the fire brigade managed to open the doors and release us, during this time I was panicking due to the heat and lack of oxygen, etc.

To cut a long story short the company contacted us today and demanded 280 euros for the lift engineer fees... They have said that they are charging my friends card, which he is obviously not happy about. They are trying to claim that the lift was overcrowded (it is an 8 passenger lift with a 650KG limit, there was 8 of us and we are not over that weight) or that we were messing about in it, which wasn't the case.

Any advice would be appreciated.
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The can only claim for damages caused by intentional or negligent acts. They certainly have no right to charge a credit card. Providing that none of the 8 in the lift had a contract on the landlords terms, they cannot be seen to have agreed to liability for accidental damage.

As amusing as some of the above ideas on countersuing are, you don't really have any grounds, other than a tenuous claim in negligence, but it's doubtful you've suffered sufficient harm to make a claim successful.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
I do ponder how they can be charged when none were present.
If a visitor breaks something they are responsible, not the owner.
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this... unless you all booked under one group, then there is no reason for group 2 to be linked to group 1....

Having said that...

Not sure about the legalities of the claim but you may have unknowingly overloaded it (still doesn't explain the buzzer not working, pretty sure that's a health and safety violation), although every lift I've been in says so if it's overweight.

Reason I say you may have overloaded it is because 650kg is only 102stones which for 8 people means a little over 12.5 stones per person. I'm 6ft 4 and weight 15.5 stones and not exactly fat...

Most lifts are able to carry more than their limit (safety margin) but will put more strain on the motor and cable, it's entirely possible that another fault was at play - for example the 'over limit' alarm didn't detect the extra weight so the lift started taking you to the next floor and in doing so this fault cause the lift to break down.
 
Just out of interest, why do you not consider an engineer's report to be evidence? It certainly is. It might be evidence that doesn't match your own claims, but before you start down the legal action route, it is worth ensuring you understand all the facts, not just the ones you like.
 
Dolph said:
Just out of interest, why do you not consider an engineer's report to be evidence? It certainly is. It might be evidence that doesn't match your own claims
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Or it could be bias - after all, if the lift is covered by some sort of warranty from the manufacturer a report from the manufacturer blaming something else so they are not liable for the costs is hardly unbiased evidence, is it?

That would be like taking a report from your local car dealer as to why the engine fault isn't covered by warranty as proof it isn't...
 
Dolph said:
Just out of interest, why do you not consider an engineer's report to be evidence? It certainly is. It might be evidence that doesn't match your own claims, but before you start down the legal action route, it is worth ensuring you understand all the facts, not just the ones you like.
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Logic fail..
 
READ THIS IN THE VOICE OF GOOFY said:
I'm currently in Dublin on holiday with friends. Last night 8 of us got into a passenger lift at my friends apartment block. The lift suddenly came to a stop between the second and first floors and said it was 'Out of service'.

We spent 10 minutes pushing the emergency button but it didn't seem to be doing anything, so I dialled 112 (the emergency number) and requested the fire brigade. It was a further 30 minutes or so before the fire brigade managed to open the doors and release us, during this time I was panicking due to the heat and lack of oxygen, etc.

To cut a long story short the company contacted us today and demanded 280 euros for the lift engineer fees... They have said that they are charging my friends card, which he is obviously not happy about. They are trying to claim that the lift was overcrowded (it is an 8 passenger lift with a 650KG limit, there was 8 of us and we are not over that weight) or that we were messing about in it, which wasn't the case.
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lsg1r said:
this... unless you all booked under one group, then there is no reason for group 2 to be linked to group 1....

Having said that...

Not sure about the legalities of the claim but you may have unknowingly overloaded it (still doesn't explain the buzzer not working, pretty sure that's a health and safety violation), although every lift I've been in says so if it's overweight.

Reason I say you may have overloaded it is because 650kg is only 102stones which for 8 people means a little over 12.5 stones per person. I'm 6ft 4 and weight 15.5 stones and not exactly fat...

Most lifts are able to carry more than their limit (safety margin) but will put more strain on the motor and cable, it's entirely possible that another fault was at play - for example the 'over limit' alarm didn't detect the extra weight so the lift started taking you to the next floor and in doing so this fault cause the lift to break down.
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He said:

GSDog said:
it was 3 lads and 5 birds.
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Unless those 5 women are huge/abnormally tall i can't see how they went over the weight limit.
 
If you don't agree with it then get whoever paid the deposit to reverse the charge on his credit card and let the company sue if they feel that strongly over it. Leave it to them to take it to court once you've got you're money back from the bank, they have to prove you did something to break it and the emergency button not working would likely go against them showing the lift was not in a fit state.

Either they take you to court over it, and I don't fancy their chances of winning, or they don't bother. Or he doesn't go to the bank, bend's over and accepts it.
 
Nitefly said:
I'd be having none of it.
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me neither since he prob gets charged a service charge for it.. I know I do.

If you got charged something like this
4IwW1tf.jpg


then I would tell them to do one.
if they aren't charging like that then they are idiots and it's their own fault

window cleaning isn't even for my own windows but the windows on the communal entrance lol....
 
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