Dear backroomers,
I would like to seek your advice.
I'm keeping an eye on a friend's motor following his relocation back to our capital city.
His 4 year old Leon is parked legally in the street outside my house. It's Spanish registered, and typical for the country, not in showroom condition. It's been there about 2 weeks. It is not with it's owner due to lack of parking facilities and Ken's cameras.
Today I find a Council notice stuck on the screen saying in the Council's opinion the car is abandoned, and in 7 days the car will be destroyed.
I've got the key, but I'm not the owner or registered keeper.
Now, can i just remove the notice, and the problem will go away? After all, it's a free country and the street is anyone's car park legally I though.
Contact the council to say "go away", even though I'm not the owner?
Do I put a new notice in the window saying it's not abandoned and is minding its own business?
I assume foreign registered cars can park legally in the UK?
Or should I just move it to another street?
I'm only a couple of stops from a large UK airport, so the nosy neighbours obviously think it's been either genuinely abandoned, or the street is being used as a long stay car park (which it often is, to be honest). But the later is no reason to go round crushing cars.
Thanks for taking the time to read this - comments welcome
Ian
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I think it should be your friend who gets in touch with the council, initially by phone, to tell them that it's his car and that it's not abandoned. He might also reasonably ask them what he should do about the situation. He might be sensible to follow that up with a letter.
Alternatively, if you can drive the car legally, you might want to do that on occasion, and tell the council that you're doing so. It could not in those circs be considered to have been abandoned.
It is likely that the council is just trying to provoke a response. You, as a responsible citizen, will want to help them.
--
Stevie
Lakland 44-02 Sunburst
Yamaha YTS-23
Mexican Telecaster
Alesis Micron
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My advice to you is to move the car straightaway. If the council warden (or whoever it is that deals with these things) comes back and sees the car still in roughly the same position then they will authorise a contractor to take it away. In this case presumably seven days after the notice has been put upon it. Sometimes you only get 24hrs.
Don't bother ringing the council first and trying to explain that you are looking after it for someone as that will only complicate matters and they probably won't listen anyway, just get the car relocated first, before you do anything else. Once it has been towed away you really will have a fight on your hands.
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You might also find that a neighbour has reported a 'dumped' car.
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I'm keeping an eye on a friend's motor following his relocation back to our capital city. ..
your friend does not have an absolute right to keep a vehicle parked on the public highway. "parked legally" implies he has paid some parking fees to park in a legally allocated space.
afaik, not definite about this as i have not looked up the law, your friend has a right to use his foreign registered car in the uk for 6 months, after which he has to comply with uk road tax rules.
also, he is the only one allowed to drive it. not you. so you cannot move it.
as your friend must live in the "capital city" which is not so far from you ["only a couple of stops from a large uk airport"], your best bet may be to tell your friend to come round pronto, alonso like, and get his car moved somewhere legal.
hasta la vista,
best wishes, lewis hamilton.
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also he is the only one allowed to drive it. not you. so you cannot move it.
You have no idea whether this is the case or not. Provided he is insured to drive the car - perhaps under a DOC extension to his existing insurance - and he has permission of the owner, he is allowed to drive it.
I, for example, am I allowed to drive the cars of absolutely anybody I know, provided I have their permission.
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You have no idea whether this is the case or not ...
in reply to michael r :
i think it may be you who has no idea what you are talking about. for example, you amy find that the words "absolutely anybody" may not hold true.
the owner of the vehicle cannot grant permission contrary to eu rules or uk rules (i.e. legality of the vehicle being on the road). if a vehicle is on the road in breach of the country's laws, then the owner cannot give you his permission to drive it - despite what you or your insurance company might think.
the fact that ian's friend is having "problems" parking in london suggests that it may not be complying with the regulations in some respect.
i believe eu rules allow the owner in person only to drive his/her car abroad within the eu for a period of 6 months out of 12 months without the need to register their cars with customs as "imports".
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Thanks for the advice chaps.
I'm near Gatwick, and he's at London Bridge, so not a huge distance for him to travel.
However, I decided to roll it 10 yards into my drive (its got a flat battery) and I will get it going whilst my mate decides what to do.
(It would have been in my drive anyway, but the house builders next door have a habit of dropping motar, brick offcuts and scaffold clips onto it!)
His plan was to take the Leon back to Spain and flog it to be honest - my street was only a stop gap measure whilst he gets settled.
I realise semi-permanant parking can get some home owners irate, but it was parked legally on a unclassified road, and to be honest there are worse things that can happen than having a maroon car outside your drive.
Council's can be obstinate beasts when they get roused, so I thought I'd take the risk of moving it rather than this issue get escalated.
The only problem now is that I feel they've "defeated" me - I'm tempted to park my car back in exactly the same spot.
Sad - yes I know, but it would be boring if we were all the same.
cheers
Ian
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Maroon? Ah well there you go then. Of course it should be crushed,
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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it was parked legally on a unclassified road and to be honest there are worse things that can happen than having a maroon car outside your drive. >>
Or a car marooned outside your drive.
"unclassified" - meaning unadopted, private road? Does the council have the same rights there?
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If it's an unadopted road then I don't think the council have any rights.
There's an unadopted road at the side of where I work and there was a Mk2 Golf that had road tax that was 6 or 7 months out of date but they were still using it on the road.
Because they parked it in an unadopted road no one official could do anything about it. They had to see it driving on public roads.
Chris
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Unclassified is totally different to unadopted.
Unclassified is any public road which isn't classified as an M, A or B road. In some cases they're still referred to as C roads.
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I've heard that story before. But, from Hansard, "Mark Tami: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what powers police forces have in respect of road traffic offences carried out on unadopted roads. [70400]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Road traffic legislation applies to all roads, defined as any highway or other road to which the public has access. It would be for the courts to decide whether any particular unadopted road was one to which the public had access. Where the public does have access to such a road, the police are able to use their full range of powers to enforce road traffic legislation."
I think its perhaps the issue of proving the vehicle has been driven that prevents action, not whether the vehocle is driven on an unadopted road.
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I think its perhaps the issue of proving the vehicle has been driven that prevents action not whether the vehocle is driven on an unadopted road.
But then , if the tax is over 6 months out of date the car should have been declared as SORN which means that it can't be kept on the road(?)
If it's not been declared as SORN then, according to the TV ads, the computer knows and will put a fine through the door.
Chris
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There was a similar situation in our village, where an owner/trader dumped old vehicles untaxed cars on a piece of land leading to workshops, on footpath, adjacent to, but not on the road. Police claimed there was nothing they could do, so maybe there was some practical difficulty, like tracing someone to confess to leaving it there. Or perhaps the authorities couldn't be bothered for some time. Eventually they were cleared off.
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>You might also find that a neighbour has reported a 'dumped' car.
This is more than likely as helpful neighbours negate the need for council snoopers. A friend was moving house a couple of years ago. On the first trip he left his 'rolling restoration' classic (taxed and MOT'd) outside his new property. When he returned he found the neighbours had reported it as abandoned! He was not invited in for a cup of tea either!
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Just to clarrify, I meant unclassified as in not an "A" or "B" road. It's an estate road. I didn't mean unadopted as in not made up.
The owner talked to my local Council: the Street Warden thought it looked OK, but as a neighbour opposite had reported it, he felt he had to initiate this action. Which I can understand as it's been stationary for 3 weeks.
As soon as the owner contacts the Council, all enforcement action ceases (although vehicles without tax are treated differently).
I'll try and have a friendly chat with my neighbour to find out what their "beef" is, whilst at the same time firmly reminding them that they don't actually have personal say about the highway outside their house, and foreign cars are legal for 6 months.
Ian
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>>I'll try and have a friendly chat with my neighbour to find out what their "beef" is
He probably thought it was abandoned. Not entirely unreasonably, imvho.
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There was a car abandoned directly outside my parents' house earlier this year (in between the two drives the house has). It was fairly new and taxed, just appeared one day and then was there for four months, after which it just vanished again. I spent lots of time on the phone trying to get it removed but to no avail. If it had been older or clearly a banger it would have been easier to do something about it.
My mum then saw the same car parked further down the road later on. Having enquired, apparently it belongs to someone who lives at the other end of the road (500 yards away) who went to China for four months, and had more cars than he could fit outside his own house. He apparently thought it was perfectly acceptable to just leave the car anywhere that suited him
Some years ago there was a real old banger abandoned outside the house (when I still lived there). That was there for 3 months, council weren't interested, and it didn't look drivable at all - clearly was abandoned. We ended up "moving" it down the road a bit to where there was a yellow line, and then it was taken away within a day or two.
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"He apparently thought it was perfectly acceptable to just leave the car anywhere that suited him"
Well isn't it perfectly acceptable? It was legally on the higway, legally parked. Only you have an issue because it doesn't move from day to day.
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Well isn't it perfectly acceptable? It was legally on the higway, legally parked. ...
horatio: how do you know legally parked on the highway?
afaik, unless you have parked in marked bay and complied with the parking regulations, no one has the right to park on the public highway.
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Dalglish
These words seemed to indicate that to me "It was fairly new and taxed" As it was a residential area I assumed it was not on a double yellow. As the police did nothing about it, I also took this to assume it was not illegally parked.
You can be done for parking anywhere other than your example, yes, but they do not use the law in that way as you well know, otherwise millions of tickets would be issued everyday.
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>>We ended up "moving" it down the road a bit to where there was a yellow line, and then it
>>was taken away within a day or two.
Nice one, I like your style. In those circumstances I would probably be tempted to do something similar.
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There is no right to park on the highway. I suspect that those in charge could say any car could be an obstruction and removed.
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Surely it can only be an obstruction if it was one.
There is no right to park on the highway but there is also no wrong unless you break a rule.
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Obstruction is an absolute offence.You do not physically have to obstruct anything.
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You do not physically have to obstruct anything.
In that case we can all be run in for it any time simply for existing and taking up public space.
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No, rediculous as it sounds you can be done for obstruction anywhere on the highway (which includes grass verges) there need not be any obstruction. The only place you are presumably safe is in a marked parking bay as long as you are in compliance with the displayed conditions for that parking bay.
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All,
If you want to discuss obstruction link it to the above otherwise posts will be moved there. Keep it to the original topic.
Thanks
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=54044&...f
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