Dismantling cars for parts - business premises?

tupac662

Hi, does anyone on here own a scrapyard or dismantle cars for a living; i.e buy cars privately/auction then sell individual parts either online or at the premises.

Just wondering how difficult it is to lease a piece of land or unused industrial site.

I've spoken to my local council about licenses I'd be required to have, but so far been unable to find a piece of land to run the business from.

It's quite disheartening having worked so hard to save up enough funds for start up costs, have cars ready, have a ready market... but currently lacking the premises

Anyone with any experience in this kind of business?

Should I just approach all farmers in the outskirts of the city and ask to lease land?

I've tried Rightmove and found 3 sites (bad location and overpriced) but still on my list.

Thanks in advance.

harveybobbles

Renting a unit is the way to go. Although lots of land ords may be funny about you diamantling cars, due to oil, fuel and other fluids that will come from a car. Plus the public liability insurance etc.

Rolandtheroadie

Father tried it in the 80's when British Leyland shut, can only see it being harder nowadays.

Buy an established business?

harveybobbles

You could just find a local scrappie and buy parts there and store them at home.

Thpough saying that I can only think of two scrappies nowadayts where you take the parts off your self. the main one is Furbers http://wjfurber.blue-sock.com/pages/page_1.php

Just go along with a set of spanners and sockets and help your self. On the way out the prices just get made up. I go there once a month to stock up on parts and often come away with a bootfull of stuff for less than £100.

So you could do it that way and rent a small unit just to store the items?

tupac662

Thanks for your replies...

I think renting a unit in a run down part of town might be the only option for us. We aim to be as environmentally friendly as possible with oil, fuel and other waste.

Cars would be stripped down for parts, unwanted parts/shell would be weighed in at the local scrap metal dealers and any fuel would be collected and harnessed by yours truly:p

I'll keep searching

vax2002

A lot are packing in due to one agency after another trying to screw fines out of them.

DCFC79

Someone i know does this as just a hobby sort of thing, when he goes to scrappies he will take parts off cars and clean them up once home and poss test them too and ebays them. He uses his garage to do it.

colino

You are planning in essence to set up a scrap yard and because of their long links with organised crime, your Local Authority, who you will have to contact and obtain, after Police checks, an Operators Licence from, don't like scrappies. Landlords too, if they are kosher, tend to have a problem with this type of business, so often the easiest way, though it is more expensive, is to buy out an existing one.
Remember too the licences you will need for transporting cars (waste) to and from your premises and the fact that a lot of cars end up in scrap yards not just because they have crash damage, it is because the expensive electronics that customers want, have already went bang.

s_b

OP
you need to do lots of homework regarding transfer licences elv certificates and planning consents
enviromental health will go for custodial if you try to run a breakers and try and circumnavigate laws
speaking to a breaker the other week and he got fined for not updating his licence number on his gate by one day they just took the fine from his fund he had to set up to get a grandfather licence,he mentioned a figure of £5000 the kind of figure you used to have to have untouched in the bank before you were allowed to apply for an operaters licence to drive 7.5 tonne trucks

vax2002

One I heard of was told by one department he had to store oil outside in a caged 250l container or he would be fined.
So he did, then he was fined £3500 for storing more than 100 litres of oil outside in a single container contravention of fire regulations.
They packed up in the end, it was one thing after another after another including someone bitten by the guard dog at 2am suing .

Kilty_2

Could you be a motor trader operating from a backstreet unit with one or two cars for sale and the rest being broken for spares because "you bought them from the auction and they're too knackered to sell" ?