Someone hit my parked car with lapsed MOT (by 5 days)

EvaLiq

Hello,
The last day for my car MOT was Monday 4 March 2013. Unfortunately my father had a accident whilst out and seriously injured his head the same day! So that day and the next day were in hospital casualty and the next few days were spent working from home and looking after my father and TBH I forgot about the MOT in the problems.

On the following Monday on 11 March I had to go into work and whilst away a vehicle hit my car which was parked outside my house and didnt leave the details.

Now I only found out about a week later that my car was damaged as I hadnt used it for the previous few weeks. So then I informed the insurance company and they had asked for a police ref no but i didnt have it at the time. A few days later while I was out, someone stopped by to tell someone who was at home that my car had been hit by a large company van (big company too).

To cut a long story short I phoned the police today and they want me to go inwith insurance, MOT and vehicle docs since they want to check that the vehicle was 'roadworthy' at the time even tho it was parked. Now the problem is with the MOT as outlined in the first paragraph.

A friend told me to basically just take the hit, sort out the MOT and pay for the damage and just not bother to go in with the docs. I can take the cost hit with a little difficulty but the police now unfortunately some details and they have been ringing twice already as they supposedly got a detail about the car wrong and want me to call them and call in with the docs!!

Currently the car is off street in a drive.

Can anyone please help or recommend with any advice with what to do with the police.

Thanks,
Evali

hugoshavez

As I understand it, there should be no issue.

You need a valid MOT to drive a car over three years old, but it's fine for a non MOT'd car to be parked on the street.

Won't prove a massive issue to your insurer either.

forgotmyname

Its not fine to be parked on the street with no MOT though.

Not the end of the world though. Insurance is not invalid etc.

What will the police do though? You have not been requested/instructed to provide the documents have you?

molerat

hugoshavez wrote: »

As I understand it, there should be no issue.

You need a valid MOT to drive a car over three years old, but it's fine for a non MOT'd car to be parked on the street.

Won't prove a massive issue to your insurer either.

Unfortunately wrong http://www.rjerrard.co.uk/law/cases/pumb.htm
In summary a vehicle is used not only when it is driven on a road, but when it is present on a road, even if it is not in roadworthy condition

EvaLiq

Actually the police woman I spoke to on the phone told me they would need to check to make sure all the docs (full licence, reg docs, insurance and mot) on the particular date of the accident were valid. Hence my initial question....

In the end I popped down to the Police station earlier as they rang me three times today! It turned out that when I phoned them earlier I had got one of the numbers in my reg wrong!

I went slightly unprepared to the station so the police woman at the counter was a bit peeved that I had to call home twice to get more information. The persons who had witnessed the accident hadn't taken the number plate of the offender's vehicle so I don't know because of this or the fact that I went there unprepared but the police woman said they wouldnt really be able to do much in the end so stopped short of completing the whole set of forms and to go ahead and give the reference no I had been given by the police earlier on the phone to the insurance company. She did not check any docs in the end apart from my license! *woo hoo* :beer:

holly_hobby

If your car is not MOT'd (whether gen oversight or not) your insurance is invalidated, as it is illegal to be driving a car without a valid MOT (unless its being driven directly to an MOT station at the time of the incident, where you can prove you had an appointment booked). The car being legally on the road (valid MOT'd and Tax Disc), is a caveat of your motor policy

AFAIk, driving a non-MOT'd vehicle results in a fine (but no points AFAIK).

So given this and the issues you will have with your insurer, you may be better to pay for any damage yourself, and put it down to experience .... the argument from the Ins Co, would be that renewal of an MOT shouldn't be left to the last day before actioning anyway (2 weeks prior is generally recommended as the latest to leave it, to take account of failures etc), and when you knew it had expired the car should not have continued to be driven (unless as I say to an MOT station for renewal).

Hope this helps

Holly

dacouch

holly_hobby wrote: »

As far as I am aware if your car is not MOT'd (whether gen oversight or not) your insurance is invalidated, as it is illegal to be driving an un-mot'd car (unless its being driven directly to an MOT station at the time of the incident, where you can prove you had an appointment booked).

So given this, you may be better to pay for any damage yourself, and put it down to experience .... the argument from the Ins Co, would be that renewal of an MOT shouldn't be left to the last day before actioning anyway, and when you knew it had expired the car should not have continued to be driven (unless as say to an MOT station for renewal).

Hope this helps

Holly

Fortunately you're wrong, the Insurance company cannot argue as it's set in stone that not having an MOT cannot invalidate your Insurance

holly_hobby

dacouch wrote: »

Fortunately you're wrong, the Insurance company cannot argue as it's set in stone that not having an MOT cannot invalidate your Insurance

Many insurers now include in the contractual t&c's, that the vehicle must have a valid MOTd (or SORN'd) at the time of incident, to be covered - I will conceed as a gesture, that whether this will affect the OP will be directly down to what THEIR own policy docs state, but to claim this isn't applicable across the board, and doesn't happen, is both presumptious and wrong.

Indeed I'm directly aware of someone whom this happened to, where the insurer directly relied upon this contractual term to reject the claim, having established it was out of MOT (by 1 day), when this was checked as part of the claim validation process.

Hope this helps
Holly

molerat

The FOS think differently, it is an unfair contract term, and had your friend made a formal complaint and gone through to the FOS their insurers would have been forced to pay.

Quentin

holly_hobby wrote: »

Many insurers now include in the contractual t&c's, that the vehicle must have a valid MOTd at the time of incident to be covered - I;ll conceed that whether this will affect the OP will be down to what THEIR policy docs state, but to state this isn't appliable and doesn't happen is presumptious.

Indeed I;m aware of someone whom this happened to, where the insurer relied upon this term to reject the claim.

Holly

You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

The insurer you refer to was trying it on and suceeded.

Any condition that may appear in a motor policy saying the policy is voided if no mot exists can be ignored. The condition cannot be enforced.

The op should ignore your posts on the topic.

holly_hobby

I see .... well based on my (2nd hand) experience of a similar situ, we'll have to agree to disagree on that for the time being.

H