Missing property

[Azaria]

Hello
My dad has been a nursing home for 6 years. He is a musician and his trumpets were with him. The home put them in their office for safe keeping as the took up space in his room.
The instruments have gone missing and the home are not taking any responsibility and said I should not have left anything of value there. If so why did they not ask me to take them home. I am very upset for my dad as he was defrauded out of his savings before he went into the home and now his beautiful instruments has been stolen.
What can I do about this. We are being treated appallingly

 

[Soobee]

Hello Azaria, and welcome to Talking Point.

I understand why you're upset. I'm wondering what you want to happen? Are you expecting the home to replace the trumpets (obviously they are expensive instruments), or give you an apology and admit they've misplaced them?

I assume you have a written contract regarding the home your dad is in, I expect one of the clauses will be that nothing of value should be left there. However, as the home put the trumpets in their office for safekeeping it could be argued that they accepted the responsibility of looking after them. It may be that the trumpets turn up - they may have been moved to a store cupboard for example, or it may be that they have been taken. I expect any legal action would cost more than the value of the items except you could try the Small Claims Court?

It might be worth you contacting your local Citizens Advice Bureau to see what they recommend.

 

[Azaria]

Thank you for your reply. If the instruments have been stolen. I would rather find out who the thief is and bring them to justice. But that is unlikely to happen. I've asked the home to pay for them as they agreed to look after them but they have refused to accept responsibility.
My next step would be small claims but just wondered if anyone else had a similar problem with a care home and do you think I would be wasting my time

 

[Pickles53]

If your father is a self-funding resident, there should be a contract which would have been signed by him or his representative, so I would first look at the terms and conditions say about responsibility for property. That would be the legal basis of any claim for compensation. If he’s not self-funding, and you don’t have a contract, look at any paperwork from the home as it would be unusual for there not to be some written explanation of how they handle this; lost possessions are not unusual in a care home and it’s not always the fault of the staff as some residents don’t know what is/isn’t their own property.

If you can’t find anything in the paperwork, you’re in a more difficult situation. When they decided to keep the trumpets in the office, was anything said/written about whether they were accepting responsibility?

I know I’m taking a rather ‘legalistic’ approach but if you haven’t got anything objective you can only hope they will do something as a goodwill gesture. They should at least be doing a thorough search as it’s quite possible another resident has ‘hidden’ them somewhere; they may not be gone for good.