Claiming a car??

Cheers Mate,

Gotta head off for now, will have a look later a the email, thanks for all the help everyone.

Just out of curiousity, aside from the 944 guy has any one else been through this process??

Not sure if it makes any difference, but remember the registered keeper isn't necessarily the owner so getting the V5 changed doesn't mean you own it...

I'm surprised the garage let it sit there for so long. Mind you, my local one had a lightweight sat in it's car park rotting for about 5 years, but the owner did eventually come back and claim it (unfortunately).
Really, the ball is in their court. They need to contact the owner and tell them to remove it/pay for storage/whatever or they will take it in payment.

Guy

You should allow 2-6 weeks. Basically like sending the new keeper part of the V5 back.

my mates going through the same sort of thing a customer left an old series at his yard owing him neally 200 quid it was sitting there for 18 months after a few messages he never returned to collect or pay his bill even messages saying its getting sold if he dont contact him so my mate sold it the buyer tried to get reg docs then got a visit from the police by this time it was dismantled and chassis scraped as it was very rotten but the police said not to worrie only thing he could do is go to civil courts but the customer could end up paying 18 months of storage costs

just buy it and break it, dont even bother telling the DVLA.

This applies to anything left with a business as part of an agreement to provide a service. Title remains with the owner however the contract to provide the service can give rights to the business in that they can retain the goods until a reasonable charge is paid for the service and the business has the right to dispose of the goods if they are not claimed or the charge is not paid. They must however obtain a fair price for the goods and may only take their true expenses from the amount obtained and pay the remainder to the original owner.
In this case they must give legal notice of the intention to dispose of the vehicle or the charge that is due if the original owner wishes to reclaim it. This is normally done by recorded delivery and can include storage charges etc. Once this done and a reasonable period of notice (as stated in the letter but at least 3 months if money owed) has passed then they can dispose of it as they see fit. If the toal costs including storage exceeds the value of the goods then they can dispose of it at any charge they are willing to accept. Once you have a bill of sale from the garage you can then apply to the DVLA as the new registered keeper. The ability of the garage to sell the vehicle is governed by the Torts(Interference with Goods)Act 1977.

elmo said:

Well i sold a Landy a while ago and sent away the dockys, i recently got a letter through saying that someone had requested the dockys so i asume they never got to the DVLA...anyway, in the letter it said something like, if i didnt reply within a certin period the dockys would be sent to the person who requested it anyway.

I didnt really read it in any detail, i just wrote to them and said it was all correct...thats what turned the light bulb on when i heard about this motor sitting in the garage....

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I got the same letter from DVLA when my series 3 got nicked. I phoned em up and told em it's stolen.........


So they issued the V5 anyway cos they don't care wether it's nicked or not as long as they know where to send the bill for the road tax. (No I'm not joking). I couldn't believe it. They told me it's nothing to do with them it's a civil matter. When I asked em what the point was in sending me the letter they replied 'it's procedure'.

The moral of the story is that if you see a vehicle you like and it aint yours just apply for the V5 cos the DVLA don't care and will send you one out.

go careful the registered keeper is not always the legal owner example car on hp

Good Point, its a p38, surely it would have been paid off by now!?....Maybe.

A little mixed in responce then....think i will see if the garage is willing to apply for it, problem being is they will no doubt try and sell it at a daft price....If i do the paper work and then turn up with the V5 in my hand, surely they will have to give me the keys???

bigchap said:

i wondered because there is one in frimley green that the owner never picked up after it failed it's mot

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Where is it? I'm round that way and always interested in useful parts ...

elmo said:

Good Point, its a p38, surely it would have been paid off by now!?....Maybe.

A little mixed in responce then....think i will see if the garage is willing to apply for it, problem being is they will no doubt try and sell it at a daft price....If i do the paper work and then turn up with the V5 in my hand, surely they will have to give me the keys???

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probably will after you pay the bill for repairs...best asking the garage first if they are prepared to sell it on first..

The answer to this question is a simple "YES"

a few years ago I left a motorcycle for repair by an enthusiast at a local courier depot. My ex wife worked there and contacted the DVLA to explain that she had visibility of the vehicle day in day out and tyhat the repair had not been done.

She re-registered the vehicle to herself and went on to sell it. When I contacted DVLA to ask the question I was told that as long as she had visibility of the vehicle and that it was on private land she could re-register it...

I KNOW you are gonna come back with examples that make this law madness... but it is true and it honestly happened to me.

I was going to say what Ratty said...

The system may be flawed for the current owners, if they don't reply to the letter because they've changed address and the DVLA hasn't been notified. But then that'll mean the DVLA won't be able to get money out of them either. So I'm sure the DVLA would rather give the V5 over to someones they do know the address of so they can extract money from them

isn't this legalized theft ?

Just a thought, the P38 and Porsche owner could have died and had no family/next of kin to pass them on too.

who in their right mind would claim a p38 ffs......dave a p38 owner sssssh?

Sean said:

isn't this legalized theft ?

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Not according to DVLA.

As with all government agencies the rules and regs are different depending on who you speak to.

As has already been said the legal owner is not always the registered keeper according to DVLA. If however, you are stopped by the police and they ask if the vehicle you are driving is yours and you say yes. They then look at the registered keeper details and realise you aint the keeper and they nick you for theft of a motor vehicle, no insurance, failure to register new keeper details bla bla bla. Same old story of left and right hands not knowing what each other are doing.

A crime reference number means feck all to DVLA anorl. All they wanna do is find out where to send the letter when it's tax renewal time or you park illegally. They don't care about wether it's stolen or not.

It's all down to money.

They then look at the registered keeper details and realise you aint the keeper and they nick you for theft of a motor vehicle, no insurance, failure to register new keeper details bla bla bla. Same old story of left and right hands not knowing what each other are doing.

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If You recieve the V5 from the DVLA, will this not update the police records as said person? Presuming thats how the police source that information. if not then any second hand car could be seen as stolen if you got pulled over...

The actual driver of a car maynot be the actual owner although the v5 says other wise...the only way to get your car back would be to take them to court as already said?? no?

the driver, owner and registered keeper can all be different people and thats not against the law so long as the driver has insurance to drive the car!

although it may be beyond the avg plod's intelligence threshold!