A GENEROUS resident who let a stranger park on his driveway eight months ago has been left FUMING now the driver is refusing to move the car.
Omar Badran from Stoke, Plymouth, has been lumbered with a huge black van in front of his home since December last year.
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Eight months later, the Plymouth local is desperate to get the eye-sore vehicle out of his sight and be free to use his own parking space again.
The matte-black Mercedes, which has sliding doors and appears to be big enough for plenty of cargo, has sat unused for weeks.
But the driver of the van is adamant it will not budge.
Furious Omar was shocked at the owner’s flat-out refusal to collect his vehicle.
The stranger had originally agreed to borrow the driveway as long as Omar could use it again when he needed it back.
Now the two men are stuck in a stubborn struggle and Omar is determined to rid himself of the vast transit in any way he can.
He said: “This entire thing has made be really miserable and so many people have told me I’m stupid for having allowed him to park on my driveway but I was just trying to do a nice thing.”
The driveway-owner has even turned to the law in his desperation.
“I was shocked by my initial search,” Omar said, “It’s legally a grey area and you might not be able to get the council, police or the DVLA to do anything about it, even though the vehicle is uninsured, isn’t taxed and has no MOT.
“I phoned up all these places and they said they couldn’t do anything.”
Yet, after countless calls with no luck, Omar thought he found a solution under the Tort Law Act.
He said: “I found that under the Torts Act there is a way to deal with it.
“It took me several weeks and lot of stress, I thought I was going to be stuck with a really bad situation that would involve thousands of pounds spent in a civil court.”
Instead Omar put a cardboard sign on the windscreen of the van, which reads: “Under the Torts Act, this vehicle will be disposed of in one week from 27/06/22 if the owner does not collect it.”
However, after discussion with several legal professionals, Omar has been further instructed that this sign isn’t enough.
He should contact the owner of the vehicle in writing and allow for a reasonable time to pass before disposing of it, his legal counsel advised.
Omar said: “I have been told by a solicitor that I should contact the person in writing.
“I have been told to fill in a V888 form which will allow me to have access to the person’s address and then I can write to them and quote the Tort Law Act.
“There isn’t a specified time in the act but it just specifies that the time give for the individual to respond should be ‘reasonable,’ so I’ve decided to give him two weeks once I get the address from the DVLA.”
REMOVING AN ABANDONED VEHICLE WITH A TORT NOTICE
Section 12 of the Torts Act 1997 – Interference with Goods – outlines your rights if you find yourself in Omar’s position with an abandoned vehicle.
Note that if the vehicle owner is regularly using it, their behaviour could be considered trespass.
But if a vehicle is abandoned and all efforts to get the owner to collect it fail, there is a procedure to dispose of the vehicle.
Vehicles abandoned on private land, which are not stolen or subject to legal proceedings, cannot be dealt with by police or local authorities, who will treat it as a civil matter falling under Tort Law.
Instead the property owner can give the vehicle owner a Torts notice – which is a legal document giving the owner of a vehicle “reasonable time” to collect it.
During that time, it is unlawful for the property owner to interfere or dispose of the vehicle.
Yet after this time period has passed you may get rid of the vehicle.
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