car stolen - trying to charge me even though i dont want it back!

Chesnut1

Can I ask something then? If the argument is that you cannot collect your own car as the insurance is invalidated due to it being stolen and now owned by the insurance company. Then should it not be the insurance company footing the bill for recovery and storage?

Plus if the argument is that you cannot collect as you no longer own it i.e insurance company does then how can one collect it from the storage pound?

Anyone care to clarify this please.

redux

Chesnut1 wrote: »

Can I ask something then? If the argument is that you cannot collect your own car as the insurance is invalidated due to it being stolen and now owned by the insurance company. Then should it not be the insurance company footing the bill for recovery and storage?

Plus if the argument is that you cannot collect as you no longer own it i.e insurance company does then how can one collect it from the storage pound?

Anyone care to clarify this please.

I think you haven't read all of the posts, as this assertion has been countered.

Either the OP or the insurers pay the recovery bill, depending whether the OP decides to claim on the policy.

The car belongs to the owner until the insurers agree and pay out a total loss claim on it. If that does happen, the agreed value is independent of the recovery cost.

Money_Hunny

fred-1234 wrote: »

basically my car was stolen on monday, its not worth a lot so i've decided i dont want it back

they want to charge me a release fee of around £150 plus £12 a day storage fee and said they will charge me wether i have it back or not!!

can they do this?

It's true, I'm afraid. The same thing happened to my very first car. I'd actually had it officially, taken "off-the-road", parked it up, declared SORN, etc etc, but it got used as a getaway vehicle for a group of theiving g!ts and dumped a few miles from my home.

Police didn't give me a choice about arranging collection myself, either. Then I had a phone call:

"You can collect your car now, madam - that'll be it's £120, please."

I said, "Keep the bl00dy thing - it's an 18 year old Pug 205 and it's worth around 84 pence"

"Oh, no madam. For every day it's left here, it's another £12..."

So, I paid up and collected the car. :mad: As it was declared SORN, there was no insurance on the car, to try and re-claim the costs, either (Even if that's possible?)

It's disgusting that crime-victims have to PAY to have their property returned to them...:mad:

The only thing that gave me a tiny giggle, was the image of the theiving scum trying to 'race' away from the scene of the crime, in my ancient, two-door banger, at it's dizzying top speed of about 58mph....

Anyway, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Hope things get sorted out. My advice would be to paid the release fee and if you can, try and claim the costs back.

derrick

This thread proves you can win and don't necessarily have to pay, it is a long thread, but reply #197 on page 7 from the OP shows that he did win and did not pay to have his vehicle returned.

Wig

derrick wrote: »

This thread proves you can win and don't necessarily have to pay, it is a long thread, but reply #197 on page 7 from the OP shows that he did win and did not pay to have his vehicle returned.

The OP in that thread was lucky because they wanted to fingerprint the car ( a seemingly cut and dried position to be in), I don't know where he got his quote from in post #197

I would say that quote is "by the letter of the law" correct. But note that IMO it does not allow the police to tow a car that was stolen which is found in a legally parked position. As it has not been abandoned, a notice must be fixed to the vehicle for a minimum period of time to determine if a vehicle has been abandoned. And in the case of a stolen car, the police should also notify the owner where it is before they could reasonably claim it has been abandoned.

It would also IMO be a very unfair thing to do for the police to automatically tow a stolen vehicle that was found parked illegally or in contravention of some other law as long as it posed no danger or obstruction without first having permission to do so from the owner.

fred-1234

for anyone who is following this, i have been told by the police (after telling the recovery service i wouldnt be paying and they could keep the vehicle) that the matter will not be persued further