If during during a hurricane, part of a person’s dwelling is blown onto and causes damage to a neighboring property, is the owner responsible for the damage? In this case properly installed solar panels broke glass panels on a neighbors house. The owner of the house that was damaged demanded payment in order to return the still servicable panels to its owner until they paid to replace the glass.
The way homeowners insurance usually works (by agreement among all the insurance companies, or by regulation) is that the policy that covers the damaged property is the policy that pays out, regardless of how the damage occurred. This makes sense from the insurance companies’ point of view, because for them it averages out in the long run, and it avoids the time-consuming and expensive process of ascertaining the exact cause of damage. For example, it could be uncertain exactly which tree a branch blew from in a storm.
There are exceptions - for example, if there was negligence. It doesn’t sound like this applies in your case.
So it should be a straightforward and uncontroversial matter that your neighbor should file a claim with their insurance. Your homeowner’s insurance would not pay for your neighbor’s property even if you tried to claim.
The only complication here is the question of the deductible on your neighbor’s policy. Under these circumstances, some people feel they have an ethical obligation to pay their neighbor’s deductible. I don’t share that view. People decide on their own insurance policy ahead of time. Some people choose to risk a higher deductible in order to benefit from lower premiums. That choice was nothing to do with you - they made that choice. If the accepted procedure is that they should claim from their insurance policy, they must live with the terms of the policy they chose, including the deductible they chose.
Similarly, if your neighbor chose not to insure their property at all - that is not your problem, either legally (absent negligence) or ethically.
If your neighbor whines that this is “unfair”, they are simply wrong. The procedure that the insurance companies decided upon is symmetrical and perfectly fair. The fact that your neighbor was ignorant of this is irrelevant.
In addition to the neighbor being wrong about being entitled to payment (as explained above) they are now unlawfully in possession of someone else’s property with the stated intent of depriving the rightful owner of said property. That’s pretty much the definition of theft.
I’m assuming that you will be filing a claim for damages to your house - your properly installed solar panels were blown off. Since they are no longer there, they’re no longer usable, and insurance will pay (depreciated, probably) value for them. So, you don’t have to pay your neighbor to get solar panels back on your house.
Actually this scenario really is about friends of ours. We live very close to them went through the same storm and our panels remained on our roof. Maybe the deductable is more than the cost to replace the glass. That detaill escapes me. The friends paid the other owner but really felt it was a classless move on the neighbors part. Personally I wouldn’t have paid.
I think it would be the same situation as a tree falling. I had a large branch (about 14 inch diameter brake off a tree in my yard. It damaged the fence between my and my neighbor’s properties. I checked with my insurance company. As it was a good neighbor fence my insurance company would only pay for 1/2 of the fence repair less 1/2 my deductable. The Neighbor was responcable for the other half of the repair.
Is it really? I thought that theft is usually defined in terms of taking—that is, physically moving something into your possession. Refusing to hand over property that somehow ended up on your land may be somehow illegal but I’m not sure if it’s theft. Any lawyers want to weigh in?
Colorado. CRS 18-4-401. “Taking” is only one way to facilitate the actual wrong of deprivation. I’d be interested as well to see if similar definitions exist elsewhere.
I assume another possible definition of taking is not returning something when the rightful owner asks for it. You might have a request for reasonable reimbursement for the trouble it has caused, or caution demanding proof of ownership - but simply asserting “possession is 9/10 of the law” - no, often it is not.
I recall a similar news article where if someone deposits money in the wrong account and you try to take it (i.e. withdraw it before the bank can fix the mistake, knowing it is not yours) that can be construed as theft.
That definition isn’t used in Canada, which generally defines theft in terms of “taking” or “moving” something. It alternatively defines it as “converting” something to one’s own use, which I suppose might apply if the landowner started using the solar panel in question, but not if they simply left it on their property. Hurricane damage is pretty rare in Canada but I suppose something similar to what the OP describes might occur with a run-of-the-mill storm or tornado.
Canada. It’s like a whole 'nother country. 