The Basis of a Property Damage Claim
In a case of property damage, the basis of the claim is the delict norm of the Civil Code: a person who, by a wrongful, intentional or negligent act, causes damage to another person is obliged to compensate that damage. The norm regulates all three elements — the wrongfulness of the act, fault (intent or negligence) and the damage — and the success of the claim in court depends precisely on establishing those elements. In a property damage case these elements always rest on concrete facts: what happened, who acted, what caused the outcome and what the outcome was. Preparing the claim is precisely the documentary unfolding of that factual chain — an arrangement of evidence in which each element is substantiated separately.
Moreover, in litigation the concept of damage is not merely a description of the damaged thing: it embraces both what the injured person lost and what it would have received. That is why, before the claim, a full inventory of the damage matters — documents on repair costs, value assessments and a calculation of the income that the damage made impossible to receive.
Solidary Liability
Where several persons participate in causing the damage, they answer as solidary debtors — the injured person may demand the full amount from any of them. Moreover, liability is borne not only by the person who directly caused the damage but also by the one who instigated or facilitated it, as well as by the one who knowingly took advantage of damage caused to another. This widened circle strengthens the injured person's position: a suitable defendant may be not only the author of the immediate act. Solidarity also enters the strategy of the claim: directing the demand against several persons determines whose property the injured person may realistically reach in execution.