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?

No. I did state ‘valid’ blue badge. If it’s out of date the protection against clamping and towing is invalidated.

The badge wasn’t valid in this case. It had expired.

Displaying an out of date blue badge is a criminal offence and if the owner has a history of this type of misuse it can be clamped or towed dimply for displaying an invalid badge. It could also have been towed where parking permitted according to blue badge rules becomes illegal because the badge was out of date.

Yes, l realise that. I was stating a fact as some posters mistakenly think a car displaying a valid blue badge can be clamped or towed. Generally this is not the case unless it’s parked outside of the terms and conditions for blue badge use, in which case the exemption from clamping/towing is invalidated.

I have seen wardens wait for drivers to return to inspect the badge and ensure it is being used for the person in the photograph.

I bet they wouldn't let her off. When you renew your blue badge, you have to return the expired one. It's illegal to have 2 in your possession because they belong to the council so there is no way she would have two. With this level of lying though (and trying to wriggle out of things etc) I sort of doubt whether she really got her blue badge by legal means in the first place.

Long walk, short pier.

Not in her defence but I currently have 2 blue badges in my car dashboard because one has expired and I havent gotten rid of the old one yet.

But shouldn't be using the blue badge when it isnt her driving. Its up to an 8k fine for improper use of a blue badge so had you got caught using it you'd have been in the shit. Plus they'd take hers away.
Also it doesnt matter if the blue badge expired cos presuming youre the same local authority if they had seen an outdated blue badge they'd check the number and see the in date one on the system.

Shes a right chancer and its screwed her over. You dont need friends like that.

You can’t say she didn’t get her badge by legal means based on whether the LA chases up return of expired badges or not. Some do, some don’t. Ours won’t issue a new badge unless you return the old one first because of a high level of expired badges being sold on the black market and used illegally. Many LA’s don’t do this, but it doesn’t alter the fact that badges are issued legally if the recipient still qualifies.

Yep. Same here. I parked in a disabled bay at the back of a loading space in our city centre to pop into a Tesco local. When I came out a traffic warden was hovering by the car. They asked to see the reverse of the badge holding my details and checked the photos matched as well as asking for any other ID I had on me. More than happy to oblige as it helps protect other badge users.

I didn't say she didn't get it legally (i.e. it's a fact), I expressed the opinion that, given her behaviour and proclivity for trying to beat the system, "I sort of doubt" she got it through official channels. I could have said "I wouldn't be surprised to hear she didn't get it legally" as that amounts to the same thing.

For the record, both authorities I have dealt with with regard to blue badges have been very hot on not issuing new ones if the old one is not surrendered.

@bakingmama76 the OP, hasn’t been seen for a while, but my guess is that the friend did not have a valid BB, only an out of date one, and has been using the out of date one, hence parking tickets and unpaid fines.

Why would a valid BB holder rack up parking tickets?

And is now trying to blame the OP for her DH not using the fictional in date badge,

Does she have a disability that you know of that would qualify her for a badge? The threshold is high.

But many forged / stolen badges are in circulation.

Update on the situation my friend eneded up paying for the car to be released it was about £500+ we definitely was not going to pay for that thank you for everyone giving me and my partner good advice and we definitely won’t be helping anyone out like this again

A valid BB holder can easily rack up parking tickets if they ark outside of the terms and conditions of the badge use. It’s sometimes as simple as displaying the badge and not setting the clock in time limited areas.

100% agree, she is a cheeky fucker having putting all this stress on you and your husband. Fire her off, she's no friend just a using cow, having you mopping up her mess..

No don't pay, she was asking you to do something a bit off in the first place, you did her a favour and it went wrong due to her not giving you all the information. Why does she keep an out of date blue badge in the car?

It's called no good deed goes unpunished, tell your soon to be ex friend that there is no way you are paying anything. It's all her problem for not paying her parking tickets in the first place.

I see your still calling her a “friend” which she certainly doesn’t sound like

glad you stood your ground - well done

If her Blue Badge had expired then she should have returned it to the council.