Handling of Noise Nuisance (my car alarm) by Woking Council

phil_7000

This is not exactly a parking fine, so I might not be posting this in the right category...

My car was parked over the weekend in a residential area in Surrey. Upon returning to my car I found an Abatement Notice in respect of Noise Nuisance (Environmental Protection 1990, section 80) on my windscreen. It was dated September 4th 2010 and said that my alarm was going off and I had to disconnect it within 1 hour. The alarm was silent at the time of my arrival and no other notices were present, so I assumed that all was well and drove home.

Twenty days later (September 24th) I was shocked to receive a letter from Woking Borough Council stating that after the Abatement Notice was issued, an alarm engineer was called out to silence the alarm. It also said that the engineer was unable to gain entry to the vehicle without causing damage, so the alarm was not silenced by the engineer, but it did stop sounding shortly after and no more complaints from residents were received.

Woking Borough Council said that they would be seeking to recover the cost of the call out charge, along with a 20% administration fee, despite the fact that the contractor did not silence the alarm. Seven days later an invoice arrived for the sum of £210.09 for "Recovery of costs for disabling faulty car alarm" (despite the previous letter stating that they did not disable it). Payment was required within 14 days of the date of the invoice, so by the time it arrived in the post there were only 9 days left.

I completely agree with the fact that falsely triggered car alarms are a nuisance and should be dealt with by local authorities when necessary. However, I cannot regard the way this particular authority has dealt with me as anything other than extortion. My particular points of concern are:

1. Is £210.09 a reasonable amount considering they have not done anything? Is it fair to charge a 20% administration fee?

2. The original letter stated that the alarm was not diabled, yet they are invoicing me for disabling the alarm.

3. Is it reasonable to be given 9 days between receiving an invoice and having to pay it?

4. Is it reasonable for me to find out that there are costs involved as late as 20 days after the date of the incident?

5. Shortly after the incident I discovered that the radiator grille in my car was no longer present. I am sure that the engineer removed it in order to try to get to the horn, did not reinstall it properly and so the grille fell out later (my car only has a factory fitted alarm which sounds the horn when triggered). This grille costs £95.35 to replace. Do I stand any chance of recovering this cost?

6. I know that my alarm is not faulty. For £49 I can put the car through VW diagnostics and get written evidence that no fault is present. Will such document help me fight the case for not paying Woking Borough Council?

Any advice will be very much appreciated.

Many thanks,

Phil

trinidadone

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM, what a lovely council

kwaks

Tell council where to go and ask if the engineer sent out seen the people who stole your radiator grill.


Then ask them if it would not be better to send police to alarms in future and hold onto their noise abatement notices for the complaints you will be making for the bin lorries from now on.

anewman

I'm not aware of any specific laws on car alarm noise in the UK. I know in the US some states have a specific number of times within an hour and length of time before it is considered a nuisance, so alarms made by US companies like Viper and Clifford have something they call Nuisance Prevention Circuitry which prevents repeat alarms (it can be disabled).

Out of interest what has been happening? Has some kids been bouncing a ball off your car or something? While the alarm may not be faulty it may still be prudent to try address the issue causing the alarms, either for example disabling the sensors (most systems give a means to do this) or chasing after the brats with an axe or baseball bat.

In your position I would be reporting the criminal damage to the car to the police, along with the details of the person/company responsible. They will more than likely not do anything but the crime number might be useful. As they have admitted to interfering with your car in writing, I would take this as an admission and take them to the small claims court for the full cost of rectifying any damage (after sending them a notice before action etc giving them a chance to pay up first). Present the letters in court as evidence. I suspect the noise abatement law does not permit them to commit criminal damage.

What the heck are they doing to try disable the alarm anyway? Alarms are usually designed such that you cannot disable them easily, otherwise it defeats the point of having an alarm. With things like battery backup sirens and so on they'll never manage it. And of course the alarm will go off while an engineer !!!!s with the car.

Regarding point 6, I doubt having a report of no faults recorded by the computers ECU would be beneficial at all. I think for £50 an alarm specialist would probably write you a report which may hold more weight.

Back to the invoice for having someone unsuccessfully attempt to disable the alarm, I would be inclined to look into not paying it. However I do not understand the laws enough to say you can get away without paying it. Like you say there would seem to be a number of factors in your favour if it were a case of them taking you to Court.

You may want to write a letter refusing to pay the charge outlining the reasons you mention (alarm not faulty, engineer did not successfully disable etc) and in the same letter refer to the damage and state you will seek to recover those costs in court if not paid within say 14 days. Be sure to be able to back up the costs of getting the grille fixed with receipts etc keeping the originals in case needed for court.

Another thing I am not sure on is whether you would take the engineer or the council to court to recover the costs, or both. Did they provide the details of the engineer or the company he works for?

anewman

Had another brainwave, if you can get onto some VW forums find out the type of alarm installed and whether the alarm has any nuisance prevention measures. Or even try it out yourself where you won't annoy anyone by intentionally setting it off. Set it off and let it stop itself and keep on doing it a couple of times, if after a few times you cannot set it off, then your alarm has nuisance prevention technology Remember that most nuisance prevention systems work on one sensor, so if your car has more than one you will want to target only one sensor (for example the cabin volumetric one with the window open and sticking your arm and head in). I think most nuisance prevention systems only reset when the ignition is turned on then off, so this might still work if you disable the alarm sounding with the fob.

Whatever you do keep us updated, it would be great to hear the outcome especially if it turns out you don't have to pay their charge and you can get them to pay for the damage in court

Edit: another brainwave again. Had he disabled the car's horn, he would have actually made the car unroadworthy (no horn = mot fail).

Bunny_girl

This happened to me last year when I bought a new house. The alarm went off and of course, no one was around to silence it as the sale had only just gone through and we hadm't moved in yet. We hadn't had a chance to register the alarm keyholders, so a s.80 notice was served on 'the owner' and we were given an hour to silence the alarm. An engineer was called by an officer from our local council and a wire was cut on the external box, which stopped the noise, but cost us £250 to reinstall the alarm, plus the same again had to be paid to the council for their call out.

I looked into the costs etc at the time and the council can charge 'reasonably incurred costs' incurred from the person 'by whose omissions or actions cause a nuisance to exist'. The s.80 notice is a legal document which covers the council, so they have acted legally and if those are the costs they have incurred - plus reasonable costs, which in this case I think the 20% administration costs will help to cover paying the out of hour's contractor, then they are covering costs which were the result of having to abate a noise nuisance.

I was told by Environmental Health at the time that I was still liable for the offence, because even though the council had stopped the alarm from sounding, they had served a legal notice which then went on to be breached (because no-one turned it off and the council had to step in 'in default of the notice'), therefore I was still at risk of being taken to court and fined up to £5,000, so really, I got off lightly and decided not to pursue it any further!

anewman

£250 to cut a wire in/to an external bell box? That's hardly "reasonably incurred costs". I could buy a set of ladders, a pair of side cutters, and do it myself for under £100.

Bunny_girl

If that's the case and you're a qualified electrician, why not contact a few of your local council's and get on their books? You 'd be saving us quite a bit of money whilst making some for yourself!

anewman

Bunny_girl wrote: »

If that's the case and you're a qualified electrician, why not contact a few of your local council's and get on their books? You 'd be saving us quite a bit of money whilst making some for yourself!

I'm more into car electrics and have no qualifications. There's more danger in using the ladders than cutting a bell box wire though. I'm sure the qualifications are probably just something like City and Guilds and not too difficult to get though. I wouldn't mind £250 for under an hours work though.