estimates required to fix property damage

On Christmas Day, we had a very unfortunate incident with
a neighbor in which this person damaged our car. As we were
leaving their house, this person threw a book at our car, came over to the drivers side door, kicked the door three or four times and tried to smash the windows with their open hands, which they were not able to do. After waiting three days to hear from them regarding repairing the damage, and them not contacting us at all, we got the car repaired, with the idea that we would have to take care of this thru small claims court. We paid for the damages, and had to rent a car as it took 8 days to repair the vehicle. The total bill came to approx. $1650.00. My question is, we never got three estimates for the damage, just went ahead and got the car repaired. We live in California and there should be no question about who did the damage as it was seen by a police officer and he is willing to testify that this other party admitted to doing the damage. In this case, am I still required to get three estimates before going thru with the repair?

mozo1 said:

On Christmas Day, we had a very unfortunate incident with
a neighbor in which this person damaged our car. As we were
leaving their house, this person threw a book at our car, came over to the drivers side door, kicked the door three or four times and tried to smash the windows with their open hands, which they were not able to do. After waiting three days to hear from them regarding repairing the damage, and them not contacting us at all, we got the car repaired, with the idea that we would have to take care of this thru small claims court. We paid for the damages, and had to rent a car as it took 8 days to repair the vehicle. The total bill came to approx. $1650.00. My question is, we never got three estimates for the damage, just went ahead and got the car repaired. We live in California and there should be no question about who did the damage as it was seen by a police officer and he is willing to testify that this other party admitted to doing the damage. In this case, am I still required to get three estimates before going thru with the repair?

Click to expand...

My response:

Wow ! What did you do to piss this person off, especially on Christmas day ? Whatever happened to "Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward All Men" ? I guess that concept went out the window along with "the day, the music died".

While judges do like to see multiple estimates if a person is seeking damages prior to repair, there is no law in this regard. It's just an unwritten "rule of thumb".

However, while a judge might ask you why multiple estimates were not received, a judge must take "as true" the single estimate that you received because you have already paid for the damages, and can prove the same by bringing your cancelled check and final invoice for the repairs.

IAAL

If you need two other estimate here ya go.

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[Edited by HomeGuru on 01-08-2001 at 05:04 PM]

What was the Police Officer doing ? just watching ?