Police damage to flat doors?

yes – we had to make a claim under our own insurance. Police will always state it is necessary and ergo you have no redress for compensation from them directly.

You can appeal this if you have evidence that the damage was unnecessarily incurred.

Reply to the comment left by David at 21/11/2022 – 17:55
you will struggle with that. If they tore in because it needed to be a stealthily extraction, they wont have planned to use the doorbell or knock! You wont get to know the reason for the calling so you are going to struggle to determine or prove it was ‘unnecessarily incurred’.

Yes on a few occasions, the police then engage the services of a company they regularly use which happens to be very expensive and send you the bill for making the property secure and we are then left paying the bill for this on top of the damage and new doors?
I have told our local police they should have a list of all agents and properties and I will happily provide them with keys. They should compile a data base for this kind of situation, it would be easier for them and less costly for the landlord / landlady

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 21/11/2022 – 11:49
Me too

The police always say they have a valid reason to smash their way into a property, it’s usually either to arrest someone, search for evidence, e.g. stolen goods or drugs etc, or to check on the welfare of the tenant (as they got a call to say there was shouting, or someone was threatening suicide, etc, etc). Even if a property is empty, they say they “saw the curtain move” so had reasonable grounds for believing the person was in the property (then when they find it empty they say it must have been a draft that moved the curtains!!). Basically, the police can usually get away with smashing in any door anywhere, and the landlord has no recourse to compensation for their actions and damage. (Only exception I’ve come across is when they smash in the door of a wrong address).

Best of luck with your claim against them, and if successful please come back and post details of how exactly you managed it.

Reply to the comment left by Sheralyne Stamp at 22/11/2022 – 10:09
completely sensible and a good idea. But unworkable. Police not interested from the outset as of no benefit to them whatsoever.

I had something similar but fortunately had a call first from the officer inviting me to attend otherwise they would force entry…I was local and so duly gave access. I was advised that they do not offer compensation for damage under any circumstance…..
Who’d ever want to be a landlord!

I had police smash first floor door after my tenant left a bath tap slightly running whilst there was also a blockage in the drain, tenants had never reported to me that their drain was partially blocked, so water started to overflow and started to seep through to the flat below, they vigorously tried to alert the first floor occupiers but there was no answer, so they called the police just in case someone running a bath etc collapsed, the police came and smashed the front door and then two room doors, needless to say they left a note apologising for their action which they said had to be done to ensure no one had collapsed, so it was then down to me or my tenants to cough up with the cost of repairs. luckily the cost was minimal, just under £100 to fix.

They wouldn’t put a door in for interviews (you can ask them under the freedom of information act to find this out I would imagine?). They would normally use this tactic for drugs, firearms, etc. For an interview, they would normally attend, knock and cover the back of the property at the same time! There is probably more to this than an ‘interview’!