Ruje

@Rodge Yes, the ratchet failed, because when I got back in the car the handbrake lever was fully released as if it had not been set. A lady out walking her dog said that she heard a loud bang, so it must have released some time after I had parked the car and gone into my house. Also, there is not a huge gradient on my drive so the handbrake must have released spontaneously for the car to gather enough momentum to knock over my neighbours wall - as opposed to gradually releasing and creeping down the hill. @Gabbo This also happened to my wife a week previously when she was with the kids. She had to yank the handbrake to stop the car rolling when my 11 y/o was getting out of the car. At that time she assumed that she must have set the handbrake incorrectly instead of the handbrake actually being faulty. So I would advise you to be careful when you park your car on a hill as you may have the same issue and who knows how it might manifest itself. Thanks for the feedback!

Exact same thing as the OP happened to me. Brand new Skoda Octavia parked in front drive which has a slight gradient. Handbrake released (the handle seems to have released itself) and it rolled down the drive across the road, took out the neighbours wall and bounced back onto the street. It was about 10pm and there was no passing traffic so we are really lucky nobody got hurt. Of course, Skoda reviewed the car and said there was nothing wrong so we need to pay for repair of the car plus the neighbours wall. We took legal advice but there is not really a case because the manual says in the small print that you should park it in gear and no fault was found with the handbrake. It was also very difficult to replicate the scenario. Personally I have no doubt that the handbrake on the car we got was faulty. Moral of the story is always park your Skoda in gear on a hill as the handbrake can fail at any moment. I would have thought that in the year 2018 the handbrake on a new car should work correctly, but not with a Skoda apparently...