Am I at fault for having my friends car impounded ?!

[bakingmama76]

So I got a call from my friend while she was on holiday saying that bailiffs were coming to her house because of unpaid parking tickets, and they might take her car. She panicked and asked if my husband could go to her house, collect the keys, and move the car to our area. I don’t even drive, but we agreed to help her.

She has a disabled badge, and when my husband first collected the car, she told him to make sure he displayed the badge in the car. She also told him not to park in the disabled bay outside my house. I’ve seen her park there many times before, but she didn’t explain why she just said not to park there. Later on, she said it was because the space belonged to someone else, but she never made that clear to us at the time.

So my husband followed her instructions, displayed the badge, and parked the car on the opposite side of the road.
A few days later, the car got a parking ticket. When we saw that, we thought maybe the issue was that the car should actually be parked in a disabled bay since she has a badge, so my husband moved the car to the disabled parking space.

A few days after that, she received another ticket while the car was parked in the disabled bay. I was going to call her straight away to let her know, but because of the time difference where she is, she would’ve been asleep. My husband was at work, so we couldn’t move the car, and I can’t drive. I said I would call her in a few hours, but when I looked out the window later, the car was gone.

I called her straight away to explain what happened, but she started shouting and blaming us. That’s when she asked if we had checked the expiry date on the disabled badge. I said no why would we check that? It’s not something we use, and we don’t know how it works. We were simply told to put the badge on display in the car, so we assumed it was valid.
She then said she had two badges in the car and one of them was expired. If she knew that, she should have made that clear to us from the beginning so we could check properly. We only saw one badge and assumed it was the correct one.

Now she’s saying that me and my husband need to come up with £380 to get her car back before the charges increase.
Am I really in the wrong here, and should I be paying for this?

Dear Cheeky Fuckwit,

There will be no payment by us! We completed your 'small' favour as per the text documentation we have.

Do not contact me again, this fiendship is over!

Done

There is no way a car would be impounded for displaying an out of date blue badge. It would just have got a ticket. That car was impounded for one reason only - the previously unpaid tickets. This is 100% on her and 0% on you.

This. ^

She'll be one of those friends who's not at fault because it's everyone else's fault.

Ditch her. What a cheek!

She sounds like a complete idiot. Anyone with so much debt the bailiffs are turning up who then goes on holiday rather than paying off some of that debt is a fool.

I doubt the expired badge is the problem, more that it's been left on street in what is presumably a permit zone with no permit and for longer than the blue badge limit. They aren't a replacement for paying for parking, sounds like with all her parking tickets she has been abusing the system or trying to get away with not paying.

Got no money but can afford to go on holiday?

Definitely not and please do not pay in the hope of getting the money back as you never will. This is not your problem ~ you've done as much as you can do ~ if the charges escalate then it really is not your fault/problem or responsibility to sort it out ~ this person is not a friend

This isn’t making sense. The disabled bay outside your house won’t ‘belong’ to someone else. It doesn’t work like that. When the council paint a bay in a residential street for a disabled resident it’s not allocated to that specific person. Anyone with a badge can legally use it. That might cause tension between two disabled people but that’s just the way it works. I know because I have one. You hope people might have the decency not to use it, but you can’t actually do anything about it if someone with a badge does.

That aside, she sounds like a bit of a dick if she has a badge but still runs up that many tickets her car gets impounded. And yes, it was her responsibility alone to notify you there were two badges in the car and one was expired.

She sounds quite disorganised and chaotic in general.

I don't feel sorry for the friend if she is prioritising a holiday over paying debts. Particularly when they all seem to be to the same place.
She's irresponsible and a total CF.

Certainly not a proper friend.

To be valid the holder of the badge must be in the vehicle. Your husband was breaking the law by using the badge to park. Your "friend" will have known this and is open to having her badge cancelled. I am a blue badge holder myself.

Wow what a CF! Absolutely not to paying the bill! You were BU to get involved in the first place.

To be legal the holder of the blue badge must be in the car. Your husband's use of the badge was, therefore, illegal. Your "friend" could / should have the badge cancelled for telling your husband to use it in this way. There are other penalties for misuse. Every blue badge holder gets a booklet that explains the rules, so she would know that what she was doing was wrong. I am a badge holder myself.

Are you someone else who "makes mistakes" and then blames others for them?
Is that how you treat your friends? It's OP who is worried about this, not the woman who is running away from her (self-inflicted problems).

What he did is actually a criminal offence, with a possible fine of £1000.

Your friend is a cheeky Mare!!!
You have done nothing wrong apart from trying to help.

Well if you didn't help she would have lost her car to debt collects.. but you did help (very kind of you) and the car got taken away. I think she just wasn't meant to have that car.😂 Definitely not your fault. You went out of your way and she didn't tell you she had two badges. You couldn't have done anything else different. She's not a friend.

There are specific disabled bays for the use of severely disabled people. They’re called permit parking spaces and you need a LA permit as well as the blue badge - both must be displayed. The difference is that the bay is marked out and in the centre or around the edge is the permit number - there will also be a post advising that the bay is for the use of the permit holder only. There is a fine of up to £1000 for misuse of these bays.

It’s illegal to clamp a vehicle displaying a valid blue badge.

There shouldn’t be two badges for one car. As badges expire the local authority should require them to be handed in at the same time as the new badge is issued.

No it doesn’t. A disabled space marked out in white for a resident is advisory. The signage advises that the space should be left for those displaying a blue badge but it’s not illegal for those without a blue badge to park in them. Only those spaces designated ‘permit only’ disabled spaces are exclusively for the use of the disabled permit holder.

Badges are person related , not car specific. Tbh if your friend is genuinely disabled I’m not sure a vehicle can be seized. Does she typically abuse use of her bb?

But an out of date BB??

I managed my Dc's badge and my Mum's - neither were required to be returned when expired.

It's likely down to the LA - from memory Birmingham doesn't ask either.

Many LA’s, including ours, have clamped down in recent yers due to problems with used badges being altered and sold. Our own ask for the expired badge to be returned as the new one is issued.