Secure car park - need insurance?

Stoke

Hello,

I rent a space in a secure car park which has a electrical door that can only be opened by fobs. It is not a public highway, and random public cannot access it.

Can an uninsured vehicle be kept in this for a few weeks? We're doing some work on it and currently the commute is a bit OTT.

Bigphil1474

Yes it can, but you need to declare it SORN i.e. off road. If you don't, you'll get a fine. Bear in mind that it won't be covered if there is any damage or it is nicked. If it's just for a few weeks, not sure I'd bother not insuring it. You don't need to tax it either, but bear in mind the road tax is for each calendar month so you may not save anything that way either.

Stoke

Bigphil1474 wrote: »

Yes it can, but you need to declare it SORN i.e. off road. If you don't, you'll get a fine. Bear in mind that it won't be covered if there is any damage or it is nicked. If it's just for a few weeks, not sure I'd bother not insuring it. You don't need to tax it either, but bear in mind the road tax is for each calendar month so you may not save anything that way either.

The problem with insuring it is the plan is to have it on the road by September'ish, once all the bits and bobs are done. If I insure it today for 12 months, it's costing (inexplicably) over £100 more than if I set the insurance to start at the start of September. Absolutely no idea why. The only other way I could do it is by using some Pay As You Go insurance like Cuvva, which I have indeed looked into.

I'm not overly concerned about it getting damaged or nicked. Cars get damaged all the time and with it being a secure car park, it's unlikely to get vandalized and any scrapes with other vehicles could easily happen when fully insured anyway? Would I claim? Probably not, because the value of the car probably doesn't justify a claim. Do people steal cars anymore? Can they even be stolen without a proper key with immo etc? Even so, the proper key is not going to be anywhere near there and will only be near the car when we're there.

SORN'ing it isn't a problem for me and I am aware of those rules. My only issue is that there is a plan to transfer the ownership in the next week or so. Will this automatically SORN it? How would the new owner go about SORN'ing it after the transfer of ownership? It is currently fully taxed.

Andy_L

What do the owners of the secure car park say?

AdrianC

There's no RTA problem, but the car park management may insist all vehicles are road-legal. They would be well within their rights to do so.

Insurance "to start today" is always more expensive than "to start tomorrow", which in turn is more expensive than "to start next week".

A keeper change will automatically cancel a pre-existing SORN.

Stoke

Andy_L wrote: »

What do the owners of the secure car park say?

I've not asked. They're not the easiest people to contact to be quite honest. E-mails rather than phone calls etc.

pogofish

Check the T&Cs you agreed to when you rented the space - IME, most commercial car parks that I've ever had anything to do with have had it in the terms that vehicles kept there need to be roadworthy, taxed, insured and MOT'd.

Stoke

pogofish wrote: »

Check the T&Cs you agreed to when you rented the space - IME, most commercial car parks that I've ever had anything to do with have had it in the terms that vehicles kept there need to be roadworthy, taxed, insured and MOT'd.

I'll look, that'd be a shame though

Aretnap

You can get fire and theft only insurance or laid up insurance of you're worried about it being nicked. It's usually significantly cheaper than 'normal' car insurance as it doesn't cover anything to do with road accidents (so the car still has to be kept off road and SORNed) and may be worth looking into.

Stoke

Aretnap wrote: »

You can get fire and theft only insurance or laid up insurance of you're worried about it being nicked. It's usually significantly cheaper than 'normal' car insurance as it doesn't cover anything to do with road accidents (so the car still has to be kept off road and SORNed) and may be worth looking into.

Would this appease the people who rent the space to me?

DoaM

Stoke wrote: »

Would this appease the people who rent the space to me?

How do you expect anyone here to know that?