Basically my bro had a crash whilst he was on holiday in Alton towers, he was planning to drive down from their to Cardiff then back to London.

After the accident, we assumed (wrongly) that wed be able to sort the car disposal over the phone and booked him train tickets to Cardiff from Alton.

Now we have a problem.

the police had it recovered b 3rd party, they are now "holding" it @ £x per day...dont know how much, but bill currently at £350

We found a local to Alton scrappie that would pick the car up and pay us £150 for it as scrap.

My bros V5 was in the door card in the owners manual.

but the scrappie says it isnt, and gets realllll ****ty when asked to check again (cos it ****in is there i saw it!) so "persuading" them to help ain't gonna work.

Were now at a dilemma, we seemingly have no V5 for the car thats rapidly incurring storage fees and we dont know what to do. i'm in London, my bro's in Cardiff and the cars in Alton...

any suggestions would be of great help! and of course were running out of time

That's a bit dodgy keeping the v5 in the car isn't it? If someone had nicked it, they could then scrap it!

yep, bloody stupid, the reason i know its there is cos i told him so many times to leave it in the house!

just tell the place where it is they can keep it

i told my bro to say that, and they say they wont, and it will keep on incurring storage costs and police will peruse us for them! (can they even do that??)

Police can't but small claims court can.
Don't know what to suggest, other than someone really needs to go there to get it sorted sooner rather than later.

i had similar when a so called mate pinched my car.

they kept the car and got scrap value, i had to make up the other p!ss take fees myself.

You need the car out of the storage ASAP! Could the insurance company help?

insurance company just want arms and legs etc....there hopeless...LV are just not helpful!

OK update...

we cant find the V5, or a copy of it.

my bro phoned the police to get them to fax something (anything) over to recovery people so they will release the car. Hes already faxed them over his license and permission to release letter

Police said here's a number, get recovery people to phone us and well confirm the ownership of the car over the phone....sooo back to recovery people...they say "we don't phone anyone ever get police to call us".....back to police....they say (different person in call centre now) we wont phone the recovery company because we don't know who you are and i (the call centre girl) don't want my name associated with this...ffs all we wanted is for them to confirm WHO is the owner of the car, that's it!....:bang:

so after establishing that the police are being just as awkward as the scrappies...were now trying to get the DVLA to send/phone anythign through to the scrappies to prove my bro owns it so they will release it...

nice to see people are still willing to do favours :bang:

i'm sure the police could have verified he owns it fairly easily to be honest, hope it gets it sorted, i know first hand what it can be like with recovery and storage costs.

At one stage, almost everything that has ever been found used to end up in Police storage, from wallets to cars. That is until the Police found out it was costing a fortune to store and adminster so most of it (except for evidence) ended being farme out to contractors. Because of this your brother's car is of no interest to the Cops.

As to the storage company, they should be beyond reproach as they need to be trustworthy to be used by the Police. You could try an official approach to your local Nick and allege theft of the V5. Posession of this document could facilitate the theft of the car itself.

it turns out that what he hit was actually something of a monument...like a miniature stone henge...

we were originally going to forgo claiming on ins to save premium loading next year, but it looks like it could get pricey. so were letting the insurance handle it.

Police eventually faxed over a doc. to the salvage people saying my bro owns it.

only worry is because he had 6 people in the car, will ins still cover it??

Did the car have 6 passenger seats?

unfortunately not...it was a mk1 fiat punto with 4 passenger seats and one driver

If he doesn't tell insurance and they find out - he'll be done for fraud...... If he tells insurance he'll probably get done anyways!

How did he crash?

Hmm tricky one. I'm guessing they'll re-emburse third party losses but not his. And he could get done for driving outside the terms of his insurance (basically making it invalid).

he informed insurance first thing mainly because police were in attendance.

but to avoid actually claiming on insurance, we were going to foot the bill to re-seat the concrete post he crashed into and pay the recovery/disposal costs (hes 19 and already has one fault claim, so as you can imagine he probably wont be driving for the foreseeable future )

as it seems the concrete post was something of a monument, and probably stone not concrete, we think it will be quite expensive, so are probably going to claim on insurance (he's fully comp btw).

He was cautioned for "driving without due care and attention" and interviewed on the spot in the back of a squad car....so i think hes "getting done" regardless and we being honest folk aren't going to try and wing it by lying our way out of it (as has been suggested by some people)

He's hoping hell get a driving improvement course (this was mentioned by the officer in attendance) rather than 3 points or possibly a license revocation....

I know it probably is...but how is it "driving outside his terms of insurance"? on my documents at least it doesn't say anything about not cramming people in your car...


the crash was as follows:

he was on unknown roads, on national speed limit single carriageway, overtook safely but was unaware of approaching junction...when he became aware, he started to brake-hard, but due to the excess weight in the car the characteristics of the car changed (he wasn't used to it or expecting it) and the car didn't slow as he expected....he slammed the brakes on and the car not having ABS skidded....slid up an embankment into one concrete/stone post (snapping it bellow the ground) then hitting a second one which stood firm.

a driving instructor claimed he was calling an ambulance for him and his friends, but actually called police....4 vans arrived not a sign of an ambulance luckily one wasn't needed

Car was then recovered by 3rd party engaged by police and my bro went on his way by train after an interview in back of squad car

It states the vehicle must be used within accordence to manufactures guidelines on passengers, loading and weight (all in the vehicles user manual). At least it does on every Insurance I've had since I was 17.

Last time I checked a Punto is 1 driver 4 passengers. To carry that many you'd need the vehicle modified (extra seat & seatbelt) and then re-certified at a VOSA centre. Very much the same process when you add seats to a minibus etc.

Carrying that many people in a 5 seat car is an offense in itself which carries a fine and 3 points. I'm assuming he hasn't been pulled up on that fact yet? If so keep stuuum tbh.

Well imo he abit of an idiot, for overtaking, what would he have saved 1-2minutes? alot less for him

putting 6 people into a car is just asking for trouble...mine can seat 4 so i dont try and cram a 5th person in simple

so just another statistic to bump up everyone's insurance, thanks

Ash

I didn't know it would actually void you insurance to do that.

Quite a few times I'll come home in a car of 6, with one of the girls sat on someone's lap in the back.