Tenant damaged car on repair of Septic

[Christian Gibbs]

Hello everyone-

We have a Single Family we are renting out in a very rural part of upstate NY.

We had a septic main line go out and had to have a contractor repair it in between snow storms in 8 degree weather.

This repair necessitated part of the driveway being dug up . The contractor filled it back up with dirt but notified me we cannot re - asphalt that part of the driveway till the weather gets better and the soil settles.

Tenant told me that the dirt was settling down a bit creating a slight ditch .

I asked for pictures and but they never sent .

Then two days later at midnight their car got stuck in the ditch and now they are saying they are going to be  late on rent since car cost $750 to get towed out . 

They asked that contractor pay for the tow and the damage to their car ( which we are unaware of at this point to what extent that is)

Our contractor feels they had no liability .

To add he is a great contractor and has saved us many times from big costs dealing  with code inspectors etc

Mg question to the forum is should we compensate the tenants for anything ?

My worry is that if we offer something it might create a snowball effect ( car damage reimbursement , etc )

We offered to take some $ off the rent until driveway is fully functional but that doesn’t seem to be satisfactory to them .

Thank

you for any advice   !

[Bruce Woodruff]

My thoughts: $750 is way too much to tow a car out of a ditch. Before you would pay even a dime, you'd need to see pictures of the car in the ditch  and being towed out. Everyone takes pictures of everything nowadays, we all have phones in our hands constantly, so I don't believe they don't have pictures.

Your Contractor is right in not re-pouring the driveway while it is so cold, so I would believe his story.

I would stick to your generous offer to deduct a few bucks off of the rent (maybe $100) for their troubles and then tell them to go pound sand.