neighbour's untaxed van - moral dilemma

shaun_from_Africa

Sgt_Pepper wrote: »

The op isn't strictly entitled to make that check.

The legal waffle that is quoted on the askmid site is just that, waffle and total BS and is wrong on 2 counts.

I understand it is an offence to wrongfully obtain information of this nature without any of the above reasonable causes. If I fail to provide true reasons for acquiring this information I may be committing an offence of unlawfully obtaining data contrary to section 55 of the Data protection Act 1998. I declare that the information provided will not be used for any purposes unrelated to this enquiry.

Section 55 of the DPA is specifically referring to "personal data", and the definition of personal data for the purposes of the act is data from which a living person can be identified.
Simply by having a registration number and knowing if the vehicle is insured or not does not make it possible to identify anyone.

Section 55 of the act also states that an offence is not committed if "

that the obtaining, disclosing or procuring—
(i)was necessary for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime,

And I would think that checking out a vehicle for no insurance while already knowing that there is no tax displayed would fall into this category nicely,

Basically, the disclaimers written into the askmid site are simply ar5e covering measures.

Mike1966

Report it.
I used to say leave things well alone and all would be fine. But then i realised the more room you give people to take over an area the more they take.

Some idiot has dumped rubbish including a matress and all sorts of junk near us this morning. The attitude from these people is its now the councils problem.

scotsbob

You report it, it gets towed, owner pays to recalim it an taxes it and it is back in the parking spaces.

You are back where you started and you and your neighbours may find mysterious scratches and dents appearing on your vehicles.

George_Michael

scotsbob wrote: »

You report it, it gets towed, owner pays to recalim it an taxes it and it is back in the parking spaces.

Or the owner decides that it's not worth spending the money to tax (and insure if not already done) a vehicle that doesn't move so they scrap it instead.

Or the owner can't afford to tax/insure it so it gets scrapped.

Or the owner decides to make the van road legal & starts driving it, thereby sometimes freeing up the parking spaces.

Just because the outcome may put the OP back in the same situation, does this mean that it's okay to ignore law breaking?

Lum

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Basically, the disclaimers written into the askmid site are simply ar5e covering measures.

Or to encourage you to pay the £3.50 for the full report. Funny how it suddenly becomes legal if you pay them for more detailed information isn't it?

As for this van. The OP needs to take it up with the management company if it's causing an issue. As others have stated if it's in an allocated parking space then it is not on the public highway so could well be legally off-road.

Some rent or lease agreements prohibit keeping an untaxed car on the premises. I know the letting agreement for my house has that clause.

fivetide

spiro wrote: »

Why warn him? If the DVLA have not chasing already it could be that he has not updated the owners address.

Or he's got it declared SORN when it technically isn't.

This one, I'd report.

5t.

giraffe69

Whatever else it is not a moral dilemma. Report it. The owner is failing to pay tax so if you are lucky you can pay more as can we all. As noted above it probably is not insured or MOT'd either. At least one off the road and you parking space back might lead to a warm feeling for a while.
I certainly would not get involved in discussions about it.

Rolandtheroadie

You have a problem with your neighbour, sort it. Dont pretend its some "moral dilema", he's annoying you and you want to do something to get at him.

Report it. Now.

Mods, this sort of thread is becoming more common recently, is it perhaps time for a sticky? Or even a Loathe My Neighbour sobthread? (meant to type subthread, but it works).

bazster

Lum wrote: »

As for this van. The OP needs to take it up with the management company if it's causing an issue. As others have stated if it's in an allocated parking space then it is not on the public highway so could well be legally off-road.

And may be SORN'ed, in which case it's all legal.

Lum

bazster wrote: »

And may be SORN'ed, in which case it's all legal.

If it wasn't SORNed then the neighbours would have had an automatic fine in the post by now anyway. The DVLA are good at those.

Really the only thing they need snitches for these days is people keeping/using a SORNed vehicle on the public highway who don't drive through ANPR cameras.