who is responsible for garage door damaged by car

I live in a townhome under condo law in Illinois.

We have detached shared garages between 4 owners. My garage door was hit by a car - no idea who did it. I have asked the property manager to file a claim as my insurance agent said it is their responsiblity. However, the property manager is stating it is I, the owner who is responsible and need to file through my own insurance.

I asked for written proof from the decs / bylaws. The property manager produced a sentence contained within the rules and regulations. This sentence makes no sense in my opinion.

"Damage to garage doors or any other structure on garage buildings must be repaired by the homeowner"

That's it. Thats the only reference in the rules/regs and I see nothing in the decs / bylaws.

Anyone have any insight as to who should be filing the claim ?

Any insight or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Jennifer

Tim gives excellent advice but you might want to see what the cost to repair is vs your deductible. You might be better off just eating the repairs vs making a claim against your insurance. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear but it just might keep your insurance from raising your rates.

Damage to a garage door is due to the negligence of the driver of the vehicle, and should be covered by the property damage insurance on the vehicle(assuming the owner of the vehicle purchased such coverage).

However, since you don't know who the driver at fault is, I would file a claim with the carrier of your homeowner's insurance company. They will likely pay and then investigate and try to seek reimbursement from the vehicle insurance policy.

As also suggested, if the damage is less than your deductible, it might be simplest to pay for the repair out-of-pocket since you cannot identify who is at fault.

I would still report the damage because if an investigation is successful in identifying the driver, you should still be able to recover the repair expense from that person.

Important note: Report it only to the police. Don't report it to the insurance company even if you don't intend to file a claim because they can still use that to adjust your rating tiers.