Would you be mad at the neighbor?

Guest should have called police. It may be too late now.

Sounds like maybe the neighbor wanted to deal with this without notifying her insurance company. Now she’s mad and acting like an idiot about the contact information.

Personally, I think no one should give anyone's phone number out without their permission. Most especially if it's for dating purposes,ugh! (but that's another thread ).



It sounds like, maybe the neighbor was hoping to handle things without involving insurance, especially if the damage is minimal.
Meaning estimates acquired and neighbor pay the repair bill.


The neighbor requested to be contacted later in person. Sister should have texted neighbor to inquire "when is a good time to guest name stop by". As long as the neighbor agreed to meet within a reasonable time frame, I would have adhered to their request. If the neighbor refused to meet within a reasonable time frame, the Sister should have said "can you please give me your insurance info so I can give it to my guest name, whose car you hit". If neighbor refused, then police should be contacted.

Neighbor has no right to be angry, the phone/insurance info should have been given immediately upon hitting the car, either in person or note. At this point I’d be calling the police if insurance info is being withheld.

If the guest is from out of town and was leaving that day, she should have spoken up right away and asked for the information, letting the neighbor know that it needed to be dealt with then and not later.

But given that she is not local and could not just stop by later to deal with it, it was certainly appropriate for her to be given the phone number so she could explain that and get the necessary info.

Sister’s neighbor is out of her mind, or trying to skip out on paying damages. She is being ridiculous.

In VA, you *must* report any car accident to the police in which one or more vehicles is/are damaged. So, here, for example, it is against the law to not report the accident to avoid insurance, etc., from knowing about it and paying for it under the table.

I don’t know what the laws are in the OP sister’s state/city, but I would check what the legal obligations are for reporting the accident to the police, and I would encourage the guest to follow the law. Usually, when there is a minimum $$ amount for damages that must be reported, it is so low that any work done in a body shop will exceed it, so most accidents must be reported.

I would also just have guest get the license plate of the neighbor, and the name, and report it immediately to her insurance. Along with the info about the neighbor refusing to readily share her insurance information. And then follow the insurance company’s instructions for getting her car repaired. Her insurance company will go after the neighbor and neighbor’s insurance. That is what you pay insurance premiums for.

ETA: at this point in time, it is not the guest’s responsibility to track down neighbor and to meet when it is convenient for neighbor. Neighbor was at fault in the accident and should be doing everything in her power to make it right. Since she won’t, guest should happily hand it over to the police and insurance and let them deal with neighbor. Neighbor may learn a lesson or two and deal with things differently next time she hits something with her car.

Are you asking if we would be mad at the neighbor who gave the phone number out? of course not. And I guess I don't understand why it is "worse" to know the neighbor's phone number when they already know their address.

At this point, I would turn everything over to the insurance agency: the phone number, the address, the license etc. Let them deal with it, I would stay out.

I think the neighbor is completely in the wrong and should have gave the guest their number when they first said what happened.   The neighbor backed into the car, the guest did nothing, so it is not up to the guest to cater to the neighbors weird paranoia.

I did something similar.  There have been periods of time in my Condo parking lot where there are parking spaces were scarce.  A new couple moved in next door and one night parked parallel at the edge of the lot.  For some reason I didn’t see them when I was backing out early one morning and tap them.  I was late and couldn’t stop but left a note on their window with my name and my number, and when I would be back...and of course I said welcome to the neighborhood.  😄

I can’t even imagine saying you need to come and see me in person to deal with this.  I called my insurance agent before they even called me.

Your neighbor is wrong and should have left all contact information when they notified the guest of what happened.  I am sorry but some people are strange about the weirdest stuff. 

Normally I would be unhappy if someone gave out my phone number. In this case, since neighbor didn't stick around to deal with the info exchange, what your sister did was perfectly reasonable.

Neighbor is being unreasonable. Guest needs to file a police report and get insurance involved with whatever info she does have, which she should have done in the first place right when it happened.

I think if I was the sister/host and I had neighbor’s number, I might have done the same thing so that they could hash it out between themselves just so I wouldn’t be caught in the middle. Or alternately I would have had my guest stick a note on neighbor’s door with her own contact information on it explaining that she was only in town for the day and couldn’t wait around for neighbor to come back.

Your neighbor sounds like a real fool. You were doing what was right in the situation and they are totally overreacting. She should’ve left the information before she ran off to work.

The neighbor has no right to be upset. Contact information and insurance information should have been exchanged the first time they spoke. There's no reason to expect that a guest is local to the area to just come knock on a door any time. At this point if I were the guest I would contact the police since the neighbor refuses to speak on the phone. It almost seems like this would constitute a hit and run.