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The position nearing the end of November 2008 .....
We had a very upbeat conversation with our solicitor and finally some action on a number of fronts.

The decorators were less than helpful responding to continued and repeated requests for information - our patience with their cavalier attitude to all this finally snapped - after some not-so-gentle persuasion they appear to be co-operating as requested. We will not hesitate to bankrupt them now if they falter in their resolve to sort this out.

The decorator's insurers have agreed to mediation, another positive sign. They have suggested that all parties should be involved. We are seeking further advice from Counsel and will then advise the relevant parties how we will proceed.

We expect movement over the next two months - hopefully we will have some positive news early in the new year.

Watch this space!

 

The position as at the end of September 2008 .....
We had summer in the last week of September - better late than never!

Now, almost 4.5 years after the fire, we have joined the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses), the largest business organisation in the UK and it looks like we may be getting some help from them. They are interested in publicising the nature of our claims against the Bank/Chartered Surveyors and the decorators' insurer - primarily to ensure that members do not suffer a similar plight. It could be of significant interest to members of the FSB who are insured by the same company for their public liability insurance (i.e. to see how a household name in insurance can callously walk away from its commitment on a whim - each FSB member insured by the same company is potentially at risk of losing their livelihood and home in similar circumstances, by being bankrupted in order to pay for damages/losses which they believed they were insured against). As for the Bank (another household name in the UK) the FSB are keen to understand their position in the case against them as there are likely to be similar cases - this case may set a precedent. In order to secure the finance necessary to purchase the property, The Bank insisted we pay for a business valuation report. We were forced to select a Chartered Surveyor from the Bank's panel, we chose one, with no reason to doubt their ability to do the job - we paid a handsome price for that report. The Bank insisted we insured the property prior to their releasing the funds. We asked the Bank's representative for the insurance reinstatement valuation in the report and duly insured for that amount. Only after the fire were we alerted to the fact that this amount was insufficient to rebuild the hotel, after all, the report was acceptable to the Bank at the time they agreed to the loan, so why should we have doubted its accuracy. This is the basis of our claim for professional negligence against the Bank and Chartered Surveyors.

With additional publicity from the FSB we are sure these cases will raise a few eyebrows and hopefully embarrass a few people into action. If it makes FSB members question their insurers and banks or brings them to account for their actions then we will have succeeded on one front at least. The adverse publicity for both of these institutions will hopefully be sufficient for them to agree a fair settlement that will be significantly less than the value of their potentially lost business as a result of their actions being exposed on a national scale.

Andrea has been told that she is "in remission" - although we believe that is what they say when they do not know what to do next whilst waiting for the next problem to occur. Andrea has been sending information to lots of people about the supplements she takes and foods she avoids that have helped her rebuild a stronger immune system that will help her fight off future infections. Fingers crossed - Andrea feels she has got this beat. Her hair is growing back all curly and she likes it short - after so many years of it being halfway down her back - a lot lighter and cooler to wear it like that.
 

The position as at the end of April 2008 .....
We had some good news in March 2008 - Andrea has made great progress in her fight against cancer, completing her 6 courses of chemotherapy and in the words of her consultant at her last visit, she looks more like somebody about to start chemo than one who has just endured 5 months of it. Andrea has done so much research about her condition and alternatives to the standard drugs proposed to us that it is worth writing a book about it - the doctors are just not equipped to make you aware of all the alternatives and supplements that can be taken to help you without all the side-effects - or can improve your chances of beating the disease taken along with the standard medicines. The NHS doctors follow their regime which is tried and tested but also appears to be dictated by the drug companies who fund the clinical trials of expensive new medicines - a conflict of interest maybe, who knows?

On completing her last scan the radiologist states "they're miserable looking tumours" - that's a good thing! So now she will be taking medicine for the next 12-18 months to rebuild the immune system, the bones damaged by the cancer and keep an eye on the original source - but no intravenous chemo which is brutal on the system.

Oh I almost forgot, we also got married on 16 April 2008.

The fight for justice with our hotel continues but seems to have slowed to a snails pace right now. Hopefully I can include more of an update in June. 

The position as at the end of November 2007 .....
A very forgettable 2007 is almost at an end.

We raised on official complaint with the FOS regarding their decision-making process and their powers. It transpires that the FOS cannot force an insurance company to indemnify their client, nor can they make a decision which involves values in excess of their £100K limit. Therefore we have all been wasting our time thinking they had the power to do something positive in our case. The FOS stated it was outside their remit as mediators to force an insurer to indemnify their client, even if they believe there to be a strong case. So it is now clear that the insurance company would have known that this was the route the case would follow and used this as a stalling tactic before offering the token £100K for the case to go away. It now lies with the decorator to sue for breach of contract, otherwise it leaves very few options open to us - each of them involving litigation, which we are prepared to take on until we have justice!

To make matters worse, we now have another battle to fight. Andrea has just been diagnosed with cancer and is about to undertake a series of chemo therapy treatments. Her breast cancer has spread to the bone and this secondary cancer is causing great concern. We hope to win both of these battles but Andrea's is by far the more important right now.

Watch this space.....

The position as at the end of June 2007 .....
No prizes for guessing what has happened since April. The Ombudsman has refused to re-open the case for the decorators and they have insufficient funds to press for a judicial review. This would only make some legal people wealthier and the poor businesses involved poorer, with no clear signs that it would force the decorator's insurers to indemnify their client. So we are exploring the possibilities of joint action with our insurers against the decorator's insurers to recover what they are clearly trying desperately to avoid paying out.

This raises a serious question for MP's to discuss in parliament. If the FOS was set-up to help resolve disputes between the Davids and Goliaths of this world, then why, when a Goliath has clearly manipulated the service to avoid paying out a large bill will they not allow the minnow some lee-way to re-open the case when he has insufficient funds to fight his case any other way (i.e. that's why he came to the FOS in the first place).

It is clear to us this is where the case was heading from the outset and this is what the decorator's insurer was counting on happening. They just refuse to pay and the little guy has to lump it - with no recourse against them. This is NOT justice, this is a big business pushing the little guys around and precisely why the FOS was set-up in the first place.

Why have a Financial Ombudsman Scheme if this is the way they treat their cases?

The position as at April 2007 (3 years after the fire) .....
Shortly before the Ombudsman was to publish his decision on the case, the decorator's insurers decided to delay events further by offering the maximum that the FOS can award as financial compensation (which is £100K). After waiting for the Ombudsman's decision on the appeal (they took over 27 months to get to this point) the Ombudsman stated to the decorators since their insurers had offered the maximum he could award, there was decision to make and dismissed the case. This then begs the question why? It also begs the question whether the original decision in favour of the decorators still held? The fact is that the decorators (and ourselves) wanted a decision from the Ombudsman on indemnification, NOT a financial award. The reason being that the accumulated losses for ourselves are more than 10 times the offered amount. Then there are the losses of our insurers who would like to recover funds they have paid out. Hence the clever offer from the decorator's insurers to delay things once again (as they have at every step of this saga). This is a war of attrition and the insurers are counting on us giving up and going away or not having the finances to see through the legal process of recovering our losses that they are obliged to pay out under their policy.

Watch this space for updates - the legal eagles will now earn their pay!   
 

The position as at September  2006 .....
Still waiting for the Ombudsman's decision. The only good news to come out of waiting this long is that the decorator's insurers will have to pay 8% interest p.a. on the amount of the claim from the date it arose. That could fund a lot of landscaping and more.

The position as at March 2006 .....
We have been advised by the decorators that, in August 2005, the adjudicator assigned to the case within the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) had ruled in favour of the decorators. In typical big-company style, i.e. avoiding paying out a large bill for as long as possible, their insurers appealed against this decision and therefore it has gone up the food-chain to a real ombudsman - appearing on the new list in November 2005. As of March 2006 this case was still months away from being heard by an ombudsman due to their backlog of work.

This begs asking the question - "who polices the FOS?" How can they be brought to account for taking so long to deal with a case when there are livelihoods at stake? If they are under-manned then surely such delays are sufficient justification for increasing the numbers of experienced ombudsmen and adjudicators. Or is it possible they are of the same opinion as the big-companies which set them up in the first place, i.e. if we take long enough then the problem might just go away (that's right, because all the little people who need this service to take on the big guys, will have gone out of business in the meantime or maybe they have simply died waiting action). We understand that they are part-funded by the Financial Institutions themselves and are primarily staffed by people from the very same industry - a bit incestuous don't you think?

So again we await some sort of action from those who have the power to force the decorators' insurer to live up to their responsibility. We are now approaching 2 years from the date of the fire and this is still to be resolved. If we had not planned our finances prudently then I am sure we would have been joining the long list of business failures in the West Country and the decorators' insurers would be laughing all the way to the bank by escaping a very large and justified claim against one of their policies. They may yet live to regret this course of action primarily since our loss of earnings to be claimed is accumulating to a sizeable amount of money.

We live and hope for a positive decision in the near future .....

The position as at December  2005 .....

Following a disastrous fire on 6th April 2004, Lambley Park Country House Hotel was almost totally destroyed. Almost 20 months later very little has changed, except for demolition and site clearance in preparation for a rebuilding project. 

The hotel was destroyed by a fire accidentally started by a firm of decorators during refurbishment, one month prior to re-opening with upgraded accommodation. The fire started under the flat roof above one of the bays on the first floor - apparently an area behind the eaves (where paint was being stripped with hot air guns) must have become overheated and some four hours after the hot-work ceased the embers reached flash-point.

15 minutes later the roof was completely gone. After 25 minutes the fire department arrived. The water pressure in the hydrants in the village was almost zero - therefore the fire department emptied our well onto the fire. Tankers arrived and they emptied them onto the fire but only to contain the fire within the shell of the building.

The decorators were insured with public liability insurance cover of up to £2m. The insurance company for the decorators however have been less than helpful throughout this whole episode - forcing the decorator to seek assistance from the Financial Ombudsman Service in order to obtain a decision which would oblige their insurer to indemnify them (i.e. pay out on claims against their policy). We are currently awaiting the outcome of the case before the financial ombudsman service (decorators vs. their insurers) which will determine our future. We hope our future lies in rebuilding the hotel and establishing a quality business. Last word was that the FOS had ruled in favour of the decorators but the insurers appealed against this decision - typical ploy from a big company facing a large bill and waiting to see if there is anybody left in business to claim anything at the end of it all.

Watch this space for further updates .......

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