I understand it's a bit sketchy taking legal advice on a forum. You could pay a solicitor at least £150 an hour for some advice or you could follow up the advice here with your own research to ensure you are not being led astray.
You would be making a claim for loss (your actual bike) as a result of breach of contract (the shop not being able to return your bike). The shop should pay you damages (the cost to put you back on an equivalent bike) as they are not able to fulfil their obligation under the contract (to return your bike).
With this information you should be able to research the process and understand how and why you are going down this route.
You have a very straightforward and simple claim for damages. None of this is similar to an insurance situation so please disregard this approach if you want back the equivalent of what you left in the care of the shop.
I had a quick look for examples of similar situations and came up with this well set out example of the process on MSE forum. Chap seems to have hit the buffers at the enforcement stage owing to unclear company structure but otherwise this is otherwise a good example of how to succeed in this situation.
The small claims process is set up to make it easy for an individual to recover their losses in this type of straightforward situation without the expense of lawyers being involved and it is the right way to settle a dispute.
Good luck.
Hi All, I really hope someone can help. I don't know where else to go and I'm at a complete loss.
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