Can I claim abandoned car...?

harveybobbles

Back in August, someone left a car outside our house. It's not a banger by any means - 03 plate. Thought nothing of it for a while.

Anyway, after a while I phoned the Police, who said to contact DVLA. DVLA said to contact local Council/Highways dept.

I have since checked on the Motor Insurance Database and it is showing as UNinsured. Also, DVLA site says it is also untaxed.

Could I, after what is now 4 months apply to be the reg'd keeper of said vehichle so it is legally mine?

[Deleted User]

That would just make you the legal registered keeper. Not the legal owner.

denvore

You could apply to be registered keeper (as previously mentioned). You may also claim it legally under the abandoned property law....I think. This may be worth checking up on though. But as it is not taxed or insured you could easily argue that the original owner had left it in such as state that they had no intention of retrieving it.

Enfieldian

It isn't a T registration Tigra then........?

Lakeuk

Enfieldian wrote: »

It isn't a T registration Tigra then........?

With a recently replaced engine :beer:

mollycat

And a Tom Tom charger on the passenger seat?????

hethmar

How odd. So its not stolen then? Wonder if money is owed on it?

Kay_Peel

I presume that you contacted the Local Authority as advised by DVLA.

The car is the LA's responsibility and, for these purposes, the LA can be considered to be the "owners". I say that because the LA controls what happens to the car - they can move, store, destroy, or sell the car if they want to - and can recover any costs from the real owner (if they can find them).

Before anyone can take control of the car they have to exhaust all reasonable enquiries to find the owner.
* You would have to find out the last keeper, contact them and find out who they sold it to or who they gave it to.
* You would then have to trace that second person and follow the trail until you run out of people to contact.
* It may be on false plates, so you would have to check the chassis number to see if it matched the reg number.
* If it came up as a different vehicle, then you would have to start the whole process again - contacting the police and LA to make enquiries based on the new information.
* You would have to keep good records of all the enquiries that you made - in case you were challenged about it.

It's highly unlikely that previous owners will give information, but they have no option but to answer questions from an official like a police officer, DVLA investigator, local authority investigator etc.

In normal circumstances, the police encourage finders of lost/abandoned property to keep it. If it remains unclaimed after a certain length of time (depending on part of the country), it's the finders'. This is not the case with cars and some other categories of property. You can probably guess why - it's because control of the car goes to the local authority and loads of enquiries need to be completed before it can be declared ownerless.

Hope that helps.

greenface

its mine i cant remember where ive left it

PasturesNew

Just remove parts, piece by piece, under cover of darkness, and sell them individually on ebay ... then buy yourself a new car with the proceeds

harveybobbles

DVLA website and Motor Insurance Database all come back with matching and correct details, so it's not stolen.

DVLA, Council and Police all seem disinterested in doing anthing. So i thought id do something my self.