law on abandoned cars?

[Drew]

i remember this being asked before but i cant remember the outcome.

there is an averagly good, possibly dumped car near my work.
its been there for a few weeks already, no tax on it.

asked a cop who was driving passed and they said they cant do anything about it and i should call the council / dvla!

is there any possibility i could have it for nowt if the owner doesnt collect it?

Drew

[xuk]

if you phone the council or dvla i would assume they'd crush it if no owner comes forward in 2 weeks due to it having no tax. the only way i see you getting it for nowt is find the owner( dont know how) and ask or blatantly take it with a recovery truck, no one will know the difference probly think its the dvla anyway
what is it?

[southside]

if you phone the council or dvla i would assume they'd crush it if no owner comes forward in 2 weeks due to it having no tax. the only way i see you getting it for nowt is find the owner( dont know how) and ask or blatantly take it with a recovery truck, no one will know the difference probly think its the dvla anyway
what is it?

The gippo's usually take away abandoned cars round here and weigh them in. No questions asked. I remember a few years back i watched them tow away a burnt out nissan x-trial by my work. blatently a stolen car that had been torched it was like a 54 plate.

[Drew]

04 plate zr!

Drew

[ptomo]

is there any possibility i could have it for nowt

Drew

I think thats called TWOKIN lol

[Punx0r]

If it's an 04 ZR then I guess someone will want it back...

Unless you can convince the police it's lost property and the DVLA don't haul away in the meantime you might be able to claim it? I'd be surprised though!

[stryder]

just take it to the scrappy

you aint gonna get it for nowt might aswell make a few quit out of it innit boyo

[munky]

apply for a v5 from the dvla.

They'll contact the current owner and if he agrees/doesnt reply you become the registered keeper.

However, keeper and owner are two different things so its a grey area when it comes down to it.

[southside]

If it's an 04 ZR then I guess someone will want it back...

Unless you can convince the police it's lost property and the DVLA don't haul away in the meantime you might be able to claim it? I'd be surprised though!

You'd be suprised. I saw one of the DVLA trucks not long back on the way to the scrapyard with a pile of untaxed unclaimed vehicles on the back and one of them was an 03 plate ZR with an old merc and an astra dropped on its roof. There was also a failry new Audi a3 on there aswell.

[xr4x4]

is it on the road/council or private property?

if it on private property, no one can do bugger all about it.

[Drew]

its on the road outside my work.

been reading a bit on the net. the council wont entertain a claim unless you have the v5 and a drivers licence. also shite cars go straight to the crusher, cars they think they can make some money from get sold! (to recover costs of course)

think ill phone the council tomorrow, see what they say.

Drew

[darwin]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Ow ... DG_4022073

[gaz200]

Can anyone remember seeing on passionford about that guy finding an abandoned escort cosworth and registering it in his name? Will see if I can find it...
Link added

http://passionford.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62326

[Phoenix3dfx225]

Tis a good read that on the passionford site, however some silly people that get all angry with big fonts saying hes a thief. I agree with some other peoples comments that he went to the council, dvla and police and when the car was stolen he went ot the police again.

Amazing story.

[ryan_220]

If i was you i would HPI the car get there home address, and the ask them to sell you there car

[Drew]

i was thinking that just to see if it was stolen or had outsteanding finace, pointless me trying to get it then having to fork out finance on it.

would a hpi tell you the owners address?

Drew

[bigmark]

apply for a v5 from the dvla.

They'll contact the current owner and if he agrees/doesnt reply you become the registered keeper.

However, keeper and owner are two different things so its a grey area when it comes down to it.

my brother had his car nicked and someone tried to get the v5 for his car and dvla contacted him about his car and asked if he was the owner still, and my brother told them it had been stolen and he had been paid out for it, so dont know what happed after that, weather the person was allowed to have the car or not.

[ryan_220]

i was thinking that just to see if it was stolen or had outsteanding finace, pointless me trying to get it then having to fork out finance on it.

would a hpi tell you the owners address?

Drew

I think it does but maybe the HPI site may explane better

[Drew]

so thats got to be near 3 months since i first noticed it, and its still there!

the hpi's ive seen on the net dont give out owners addresses, and tbh id hope not. if anyone wanted to nick my car or something from it they had seen on the net id like to think it would be more difficalt than that to find me.

has anyone actually done a hpi and do they really give out an address?

dvla has to be the first call this week.

Drew

[MarkCoupe]

Friend of mines done this before drew. Old alfa 156 had been there for like 4 months. Just be careful, if theres money owed on it and you put it in your name you owe the money.

Bt if not..HAPPY DAYS

[Scott]

Rather than worry about the legal/financial implications, perhaps you should worry about tracking down the owner?

Say someone has been ill or something, and cant get there car, only to find its been 'reposessed' by someone else...

ok 4 months is a long time. Perhaps report it at the local station as 'found' lol. Might have been used in a crime? dont wanna get caught in it saying "i found it" after that lol.

[marksmith]

I believe the DVLA will tell anyone with a good reason for asking, who the owner of a car is. I would imagine "I'd like to buy it" might be a good enough reason. £2.50 if my memory serves. I think you can do it on the website.

[Scott]

im pretty sure that only certain parties have access to this information. Eg, private car parks, wheel clamp firms, etc.

They are all logged and monitored though, and as far as i know joe public does not have access to it (but i did read 2.50 somewhere).

Quite what you have to do to get access i dont know, but id imagin it would be very difficult to (or hope it would) to obtain access to such information.

[Drew]

yeah ive heard the £2.50 story before as well.

i did ask a police officer who drove passed, they didnt seem to care! from what ive heard from the guys at work (ive not been there for a while) there have been police cars drive passed, stop, look and drive away!

i could do with knowing where the owner of my old bike went too, i had a private plate on it which i couldnt get off before the insurance man scrapped it. but it has since been put back on the road so the plate is useable again.
obviously id pay the owner for it, not like i want to just claim it back.

possibly the same £2.50 info from the dvla, but im not sure thats a good enough reason for them to give out the info i want!

Drew

[xuk]

Try Hpi'ing it first for the finance side and then bang in for a V5 but leave the car where it is. If you get the logbook back 'recover' your new car, then you just need keys.
Not a bad motor for a £100 ish layout

[Drew]

i still dont think id own it just by having the v5 in my name though.

Drew

[Grant620]

Very difficult to prove who owns it after it's been there so long tho isn't it?

[marksmith]

Don't know whether it applies to cars, as they are covered by different laws for some reason (it's not theft, it's taking without consent, for example) but generally things become yours after you have gone to reasonable measures to return them to the owner. A reasonable measure for a biro might be different to a reasonable measure for a chest of gold. I've got a shower screen which the company delivered two of my mistake, and never bothered to come and get the second one back. I told them, they didn't come, I think that's a reasonable attempt, so now the screen in mine.

Assuming the same law applies to cars, contacting the DVLA, finding the owner, writing to the owner twice, maybe even popping round in person - that's a pretty reasonable attempt at returning the property, isn't it?! What more could you do?