Who Should Pay?

[Avenger]

Option: 4 NEVER, EVER loan your tractor to anyone for any reason.
If you have a hole in your head and do, ANYTHING that happens is on you.

I would disagree with this. I know and trust the people I loan tools and equipment to. Yes, ultimately anything that happens is one me, but my neighbors and friends are very trustworthy and make things right. Now if one of my neighbors from down the road who I talk to in passing once a year asked to borrow my prize tractor, probably not. That said, I rarely load things out wholesale. I'm typically the operator or there when they are using the tool etc. So far, I have had really good luck. In once case, a neighbor borrowed an implement and it broke (rototiller blade) and he fixed it, told me about it, and it was done. Another friend borrowed my box blade and bent a supporting arm to the 3-point. He took it apart, heated it up and bent it back. He even went as far as painting the entire hitch! I am not concerned about people I trust borrowing tools or equipment.

 

[newbury]

My vote as well. You're using it and breaks, it was going to break at your house too.

Only exception I could see is if the neighbor asked you to do something really stupid with it, and you were stupid enough to agreed to do it....then he might be on the hook for some partial amount.

That is stupid squared. That is in the same category as "I bet I can, here hold my beer", anything that follows should be the responsibility of the guy that does it.

 

[4570Man]

I’m going to go with option 3 considering the amount of money involved. It wouldn’t be right to stick the neighbor with a multi thousand repair when it was no fault of his. But $125 nah he can pay that much.

 

[grsthegreat]

your machine..you were operating it... its your fault for not discussing costs for job up front. if job was to be for free, its still your option not to charge for the job. When i use my equipment (any equip) on a job theres a cost built into my hourly rate to cover repair, replacement of equipment. I never charge a customer for my broken equipment.

 

[Avenger]

I just got off the phone with the dealer. The parts are being covered under warranty! I do the work. So option 4) the dealer pays.

However, that question is still there. Who pays when your tractor breaks down?

 

[raptorterry]

I dont lend out tools, machines or my wife.

If you need a tool, I'll help.
If you need a machine of mine to do a job, I'll do it for ya.
If you something from my wife, call her lawyer.

 

[aczlan]

I think your neighbour was very generous and that both of you handled it well to keep future relations in good term.
Just because the machine broke down on his property doing normal work doesn't make him liable unless there is negligence on his part. Otherwise he'd be responsible for your negligence in maintenance or just your bad luck.

If a friend had something break while helping me (at no charge to me), I would offer to pay for at least part of it, I would probably also invite them and their spouse over for (or out to) dinner on us.

Aaron Z

 

[Thomas]

You pay...would nice if neighbor help out tho.

 

[Avenger]

your machine..you were operating it... its your fault for not discussing costs for job up front. if job was to be for free, its still your option not to charge for the job. When i use my equipment (any equip) on a job theres a cost built into my hourly rate to cover repair, replacement of equipment. I never charge a customer for my broken equipment.

That makes total sense, if your contacting work. If I hire someone to paint my house, should I pay for a broken ladder? No. But then again, we signed a contract for services at a set price. Doing a favor for a friend of neighbor, I'm not about to whip out a contract and make him sign it. We do the work, if he wants to compensate me for time, materials, fuel, etc ok. I wont argue unless he is trying to pay me some crazy high number. However, where I live, we are all very friendly and help one another, share resources, etc.
This particular neighbor is a machinist. A very good neighbor to have! He has done TONS of work for me, for free. It's what we all do in my neighborhood, exchange favors and barter. However, we do understand that there is a dollar amount costs involved with these projects.
He feels guilty about having me come over on my day off work and preform work using my tools that I broke on his project. He offers to pay.
I feel guilty because its my tractor and I broke it. We agreed to each pay for half of the repairs.

The only reason I bring this to the masses is because I had a conversation about this with the wife. She opts for option 2, I pay. Her father (who was over) said option 1, he pays. So we had a 'discussion' about it. I already agreed to pay half, so it was not an argument, simply a discussion I though would be interesting to see how others would see it.

 

[4570Man]

Here’s another scenario that happened to me. I was hired to board up windows on a school building that were about 6’ to the bottom off the ground. And there were a bunch of them. After the first day of work we decided that the ladder was way too slow. I decided to bring my tractor to use as a work platform. After the job was done the guy I was working for asked if I could push over a dead tree at the end of the driveway. It was topped by the power company and was only about 12’ tall so I wasn’t worried about the top breaking out so I did it. Remember I wasn’t getting paid to have my machine on site to begin with and I didn’t charge any extra to push the tree over. In the process of doing that a fence post I didn’t see due to overgrown grass came up under the tractor and bent the loader cylinder and the bent cylinder then crushed the steel hydraulic line. The repair bill was over $700 in parts plus probably $50 in gas to deal with it plus several hours of my time to fix it. I billed them for the entire $700 in parts. I didn’t bill for the gas or my time spent. Had I have charged $50 extra to push the tree over it would have been my deal to pay for. Since I was pushing the tree for free and wasn’t even getting paid to have my machine there I feel justified in doing what I did. On top of that me and my helper were working on a per hour basis so the tractor was saving money in the job. What’s your guys take on the matter.