If you have had an accident due to a fault in a pavement or a road, you will be interested to know that it may be possible for you to make a claim for compensation. This is because the person /company responsible for maintaining the condition of the road or pavement may have failed in their duty of care to keep the area in a satisfactory and safe condition.
What to do: Try to find out who owns the part of land where the accident occured. If the area belongs to the council, you could first of all try writing a letter of complaint to them; this record can then be used as part of the investigations at a later date. Remember to record the accident date and time – it’s also useful if you can take photographs of the defect and also of your injuries as part of your evidence for an accident claim.
Record any expenses that you may have incurred as a result of the accident – such as treatment fees or loss of earnings, if you’ve had to stay home from work because of your injury. Try to keep any receipts as they can be used as evidence to prove that you had to pay out for such expenses.
If you do decide to go ahead and place a claim for compensation, always try to go with a firm of independent specialist personal injury solicitors. This will be the best choice for you. Many law firms are tied to insurance companies and pay referral fees for the claims they receive – meaning they have less money to spend on running your claim for compensation! These fees cannot be recovered from the other side and will come out of the important running costs for your claim. It’s also a bad idea to claim with a claims handling / management firm, as these firms are not lawyers and are therefore not fully qualified to deal with such claims. A personal injury claim is the job for a solicitor.
If you do have any queries or require futher advice on the matter of pursuing a compensation claim, a firm of personal injury solicitors will be able to give you the best guidence and will help you in making the right choice for you.
