Car damaged by the car park operator?

misleading subject.

your car was NOT damaged by the carpark operator and if you go down this type of accusatory road you will rightfully come up against a brick wall as the operator did not damage your car in any way

A pipe or something in the fabric of the building has caused damage to your car.

The management company or the the company that has responsibility for the pipe or whatever item caused the damage is responsible to remedy the situation either out of their funds or via the building insurance (which you pay for in your service fees)

Those disclaimer notices effective are saying that if some hoodlum comes in and slashes a few tyres or a third party vehicle side swipes your car and drives off, they have no responsibility and that is quite correct - otherwise your service charge which is how the insurance is paid, would jump by hundreds.

But do not accuse the operator of damaging your car.

In what way were the management company negligent? You need to be able to prove this to be successful. The fact that the water escaped from their pipe is not sufficient in itself

But they are not negligent for a sudden and unforeseeable event. Now if they were aware of the problem and failed to rectify it, that's another matter

This is a storage facility. The OP pays the management company in order to store his car in a facility occupied and controlled by the management company. This is no different from paying a warehouse company to store your goods in their warehouse. You'd want to look at exactly what was signed between the OP and the management company, but in general in a contract for the storage of goods it will be an implied term that the storage premises will be a safe space for the goods, and will be properly maintained so as to keep it safe. We need to know a bit more about how the leak happened (was is the result of something over which the management company had no control?) but, on the facts we have, I think the OP must have a good arguable case.

Eggs for Dinner said:

As for the property owner, he bought Public Liability cover. This protects him for claims against him for NEGLIGENCE. It does not cover accidental damage to other people's property.

I know you work in the insurance business but surely it's not necessary for the OP to prove actual negligence in a case like this? By 'negligence' I assume you mean a failure to maintain the premises in a fit order. But an invisible pipe could have sprung a leak and caused damage for which the issue surely would be not who was negligent but who bears civil liability for the damage.

Say a freak tornado hits my estate and rips tiles from my roof which then smash into my neighbour's car and wreck it. Was I negligent? Probably not but I'm pretty sure my house insurance will accept liability and pay up.

Or is there an onus on the plaintiff in a claim for damage to prove that the owner of the property was actually negligent i.e. did not exercise proper care care and/or failed to maintain the property to the extent that this event would not have happened?

I take your point. I'm probably suffering from the modern malaise which says that if you suffer damage to your property then the principle of 'it must be somebody else's fault' must apply. Which is not always the case.

In the case of an apartment block, is the management company even liable if there is negligence? Couldn't the MC say that they exist merely to keep the common areas clean, paint the exterior every few years and maintain the lights and smoke alarms on the landings and stairwells. Pipes in the car park? Nothing to do with us!

Or suppose there's no management company or it's insolvent, who do you sue then?