I recovered £700 from the council after car tires were destroyed by a pothole – how you can do it too
DRIVERS spent almost half a billion pounds on repairs last year due to Britain's broken roads.
According to AA statistics, potholes destroyed 632,000 vehicles, an increase of 16 percent on the previous twelve months.
Bad weather and substandard maintenance caused calls to rise to their highest level in five years in 2023, the roadside recovery service said.
Motorists typically paid £250 each for pothole damage, but there are easy ways to claim the money back.
Harriet Cooke explains how.
Provide proof
If it is clear that a specific pothole is the cause of the damage, it may be possible to reclaim the repair costs from the municipality.
To do this, you must act quickly.
Revisit the hole and measure its depth and width, if safe to do so.
Most councils consider a pothole to be anything 40mm deep or more, although this varies between authorities.
Take photos of the hole up close and show its position in the road, ideally with a measuring tape inserted to illustrate its depth.
You must describe where it is located on the road, in which lane and how many meters from the curb.
Also take photos of the damage to your vehicle, along with the repair bill, and request a copy of the mechanic's statement about the cause.
Write a detailed description of what happened, where the pothole was located, the date and time you hit the pothole, and include any witness statements.
Claim
Next you need to find out which municipality is responsible for the road.
On any major A-road or motorway in England, contact National Highways.
For major Scottish roads, visit the Transport Scotland website, and for major roads in Wales, contact Traffic Wales.
For other roads you can find the correct authority by postcode at gov.uk/report-pothole.
If your car is damaged, municipalities have a section on their website where you can report a pothole.
You may automatically receive a form to complete for compensation. If not, call and ask how to file a claim.
Your claim has a better chance of success if the pothole has been reported previously.
Check fixmystreet.com, where people report traffic problems such as potholes, and add any previous reports to your claim.
Fight
Don't be surprised if your claim is denied.
Helen Dewdney, a consumer champion who runs the blog The Complaining Cow, says: “Local authorities will usually challenge claims about potholes. Their strongest defense is that they have a maintenance program.”
If your claim is denied, the authority will likely claim that they did not know the road was dangerous.
But you can still win if you successfully demonstrate that the road is not properly maintained, even if it will take time.
Know your rights
The next step is to file a Freedom of Information request asking how often the road needs to be inspected and repaired, whether these inspections have been carried out and what holes the council was aware of.
MoneySavingExpert.com has a free template letter that can be sent to the authority's FOI department, listed on the council's website.
If the information comes back, check whether the road has been maintained according to the municipality's own rules, and whether the municipality was already aware of the pothole.
You can ask local Facebook groups if anyone reported this before your accident.
If you include proof of previous reports, this may add weight to your claim.
If you have the additional information, you can appeal the council's decision.
Ask how to appeal and if you're not sure, simply write that you want to resubmit your case with new information.
To ensure
If the council still refuses to pay, try your car insurer to help cover the costs.
Corey Evans, from law firm DAS, said: “If a compensation claim is unsuccessful because it cannot be proven that the relevant authority was negligent, you may be able to make a claim on your insurance policy.
“Check your documents, check your coverage and file a claim.
You have to decide if it is worth losing your no-claim bonus.
You win some, you lose some in the battle for municipal payouts
MARIA Jones, 46, from Aberdeen, blames a pothole for damaging her BMW.
The chair yoga instructor, who runs yuvayoga.co.uk, was driving with her son when her tire burst, costing her £900.
She said: “I couldn't avoid the pothole because there was a bus coming the other way. As soon as I hit it there was a bang and when we stopped the tire broke. The bill for the tire repairs came to £250, but a few days later the suspension broke on the same side of the car – costing another £650 in repairs.
“I'm sure the two problems were related, but I can't prove it. The municipality said that the hole, which was ten centimeters deep and twenty centimeters wide, had not been previously reported and that I therefore received no compensation.
Meanwhile, handyman Peter Shelley, 53, from Newcastle, won £683 from Stoke-on-Trent City Council to replace four wheels and two tires on his BMW after hitting a pothole on the A34.
He said: “It wasn't that difficult to claim repairs – it probably helped that other people had damage from the same pothole on the same night. I submitted the claim forms, receipts and photos and they did not complain. It took two months before a solution was found.”
Thousands owed after JSA error
Around 20,000 people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance could each owe up to £2,210 after being wrongly denied benefits.
They were rejected or underpaid by the new style JSA between March 19, 2020 and November 19, 2022, after the Department for Work and Pensions made a blunder over their pension income.
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It admitted that when assessing JSA applications it may have treated income from a pension inherited from someone who has died in the same way as income from other pensions.
Normally, only the income from your own pension is taken into account.
The DWP is now contacting affected claimants, but you don't have to wait for a letter to receive the money.
If you think you have been affected, write to Benefit Centre, Freepost DWP BC 38 and ask to make a claim.
You don't have to use a stamp.
Please include your national insurance number, copies of your pension statements showing that this was inherited and the amount of pension paid for the dates of your JSA application, the reference “PAN PEN” and details of your bank, building society or credit union.
Jacobus Flanders
THE taxman has been accused of trying to make money from struggling workers who cannot pay their tax bills on time by charging exorbitant interest rates.
HMRC collected a record £346 million in interest from taxpayers who made late payments in the year to October 2023.
Last year's figure also rose, by £159 million, according to a freedom of information (FOI) request from accountants RSM.
Around 1.4 million taxpayers made late payments in the 2020/21 tax year, according to an FOI request from estate agent AJ Bell.
Assuming this figure has remained consistent, taxpayers who paid their bills late were charged an average of £247 in interest last year and £456 over the past three years.
HMRC announced last week that almost 45,000 people had put a repayment plan in place since April 2023 because they were unable to pay their tax bill.
The cost of delaying payments has skyrocketed as interest rates have risen.
The taxman charges interest based on the Bank of England rate (currently 5.25 percent), plus a further 2.5 percent.
This is despite the fact that HMRC only pays 4.25 per cent interest on amounts owed to customers.
If you are struggling to pay, set up a 'Time to Pay' plan with HMRC so you have longer to do so. Call 0300 200 3820 or apply at gov.uk/difficulties-paying-hmrc.
An HMRC spokesperson said: “The interest we charge and pay is fair. It ensures that people are not encouraged to pay too much tax to get a higher interest rate than is commercially available, while those who pay late are not given an unfair financial advantage over those who pay on time.”
Laura Purkess