Council removed our road worthy/legal car from our car park.

dacouch

dipsy wrote: »

just incase no one has mentioned it, make sure you contact them well before the "crush" date if your car is a lower value car it may be crushed early if they don't have much on.

I am only saying this as I know someone to whom this happended, turned up to pay release fee etc before date of crushing and his car had already been crushed because they were not busy, lost all his stuff in the car.

different scenario to yours though as he had no road tax at time of towing away......

hope you get it sorted soon

Dipsey if you read the link to the ombudsmans ruling on my post one of the people who had their car crushed did not have tax but the ombudsman ruled against the council and awarded compensation. Have a read of it as its very informative

nickismee

Thank you so much dacouch for spending your own time hunting down the information you found, it has been a big help and i will be enclosing the report with the letter i am taking down later today.

Quite a bit has happened, well.. for me its moving a step forward. My husband has gone for a lay down so i thought i would take over from him calling the council etc..

Anyways.

After reading the ombudsman's report, i decided to ring them for a bit of advise. I was told to ring the cheif executive office at the council. I spoke to this lovely lady who is sending an email to the head of environment services and has also given me his direct number if he hasn't been in touch with me in the next couple of hours. After the call i was sat at my laptop noting times and names of the people i had spoken to and the outcome, with a silly little grin on my face as i feel this is moving forwards.

I received a call off a lady from the councils customer services (the call back from yesterday) who again was very very helpful. She said it was ELVIS who put the request for towing, not the council.. so we are being told 2 different things from the council and ELVIS. She did say she didn't know the full details so I explained the situation, and i told her the reasons why i thought the car would be taken. the length of time its been sat there, i also stated what happens if a soldier does a tour, will their car be towed, which she replied that it a very good argument. I then said about the broken window, said we had covered it up but the weather must have taken the cover off. also stated that we are a young family and are having to save up to replace the window, which she was very understanding about.

She works in the same offices as the head of environmental services and is also going to give him a nudge on our behalf.

I asked both the ladies i spoke with to see if they could put a hold on the car being crushed, but im not sure if they have the "powers" to do this, or if i have to wait to speak with the head of enironmental services.

Do i need to ask for photos of the car for any reason? I do know i need to find out the reason why it had been towed away, is there anything else i need to find out???

Again, thank you very much to everyone who has helped out.

dacouch

Elvis seems to be run by the council and police, this link explains it.

http://www.northants.police.uk/default.asp?action=article&ID=11472

It may be worth ringing them as well

nickismee

This just gets better and better, lol

I have just rang ELVIS, i asked why the car was removed..

A member of public reported the car as vandolised, but gave ELVIS the wrong reg plate number, so they couldn't find our details to get in touch with us before taking the car. They sent out a council rep to have a look and they deemed it as a fire hazard and abandoned. Im guessing at that point they would have taken the reg plate, so why didnt they contact us then???

Also.. was told, if the council own the car park then the car can be removed without any notice as the car park is classed a public highway.

So if a car with a broken window which has been covered up is deemed as a fire hazard, why do we have convertables?? hehe..

dacouch

From what I have read removing the car right away depends on the car value (This is also touched on in the ombudsmans report). If the value is over a certain amount the guidlines advise there is a notice period.

For the council employee who made the decision the car was abandoned the guidelines do not say just because it has a broken window it is abandoned.

I assume the seat next to the broken window did not have broken glass on it, this would indicate to me or any logical person that it was not abandoned as someone has gone to the trouble of clearing up the glass.

I really think you should esculate this as the council will be hoping you go away.

Can you get to the car pound to take some photos of what condition the car is in? This may help your case.

nickismee

The car is worth around £500, its a N reg Mondeo, nothing fancy, but its MY car which i have been learning to drive in.

I am now being told by ELVIS that this matter lies with the council, the council on the other hand are saying i have to speak with ELVIS. Due to this, we have decided we will be going to see the solicitor as i am getting very stressed and annoyed with this whole matter. All i can say is thank god for legal aid!!!

With the photo's.. ELVIS do have photographic evidence, which i am going to ask for a copy of.

dacouch

If the car is worth under £1000 they can remove with no notice

The government gave the local government the authority for nominated employees to work out whether a vehicle is "Abandoned" . ELVIS is just an inter departmental system which keeps them all in touch eg council, police and fire brigade. The idea being if the police are staking out a vehicle ELVIS means the council will realise this when they check it so leave it alone. The ELVIS system is 24/7 365 days a year and is linked to the DVLA its all singing all dancing.

So in my opinion the council employee deemed your car abandonded using the guidelines which advise them to excercise caution so I would have thought the case is against them

You may have legal protection cover with your home insurance that will cover this

Good luck

photome

The car was taxed insured and mot a simple check would have shown the owner to be living next to where it was parked!!!

Hope you get everything and more from the council.

Mark_Hewitt

Sounds to me like they just couldn't be bothered as it seemed 'obvious'. To my mind the fact that it was removed is isn't a big problem. Abandoned vehicles do cause an issue.

What should have happened is when the OP phoned to tell them of their mistake they should have delivered the car back to exactly where it was picked up, same day, no questions asked and definitely no charge.

It should not involve the owner having to fight for return of property which was, effectively, stolen from him.

MX5huggy

Intresting thread, good luck nickismee all power to you.

Just to clear up you dont need a working mileometer my Dads morgan has passed 20 MOT's with the same milage showing! The only thing is a non working mileometer normaly means the speedo does not work as well, but not in dads case.