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?

I’m pretty sure your husband will have broken the law by fraudulently using her blue badge to park - so I’d stay well out of having any further record you were involved before you find yourselves in hot water…

Don’t be so gullible in future OP. “I didn’t know the rules about blue badges” won’t carry any weight.

Now I am wondering if this was the friend's plan all along- get the husband to park the car then any future parking tickets she can literally say "wasnt my fault, my friend parked my car for me".

And I suppose you’ve NEVER done anything even remotely wrong in your entire life, have you?! You’ve never had life pile on top of you, you’re ✨ PERFECT ✨ 👌🏻

I've made plenty of mistakes yes. But I dont park selfishly where it would prevent emergency vehicles getting through and I dont demand money from my friends after theyve done me a favour, no.

I also dont abuse a blue badge.

Have you checked the car was taxed? That's usually why cars are impounded where I am from.

Plus was the DH insured to drive it ?

I don’t know why you’re arguing about the definition of mistake and whether or not a compete Stranger is “allowed” to feel sorry for her? Weird.

Why do you ask, are you going to retrospectively call the police? 😭

You and your husband are definitely not at fault aside from actually moving her car for her when she was already in the wrong for not paying her parking fines, although I totally understand that you were trying to help someone who you thought was a friend.

She is in the wrong for A, not paying her own parking fines in the first place (or appealing them if she disagreed with them, B, embroiling you and your husband into her own stupid mess and then having the cheek to blame you when SHE was caught out and C, for having two Blue Badges - when I had to renew mine, I had to return it.

Don't let this frenemy take up any more of your headspace or time - she is at fault, not you.
If she could afford a holiday, then why couldn't she afford to pay her fines and/or if she had time to go on holiday then why couldn't she find the time to appeal her fines and deal with it herself.
If I were you, I'd let this be the catalyst to end this "friendship" as she's certainly not been a friend at all in this entire situation.

What an odd thread. Why would the car get a ticket if parked legally on the road? There is more to this than your "friend" is letting on. I would absolutely not be entertaining this person any more.

I dont know why you are so determined to defend someone who is abusing a blue badge- weird.

Getting involved wasn't your finest hour.

Sounds like your friend thinks she's above the law.
If she's the type i'm surprised she hasn't contacted the police and had your DH done for TWOK inorder to get her car back without paying the fee.

This with bells on. She’s no truths she’s an entitled selfish CF.

Dont even respond to her - she got herself into this by not paying fines. Not your circus not your monkeys

Is this for real? She needs to pay her fines, all of them, and apologise to you and your DH.

I’d be inclined to get your DH to take it back to where it was originally, cut off contact and make her deal with the consequences of her behaviour both in terms of legal/social obligations and shittiness towards you and your DH.

You enjoyed talking about the definition of “mistake” - why don’t you move those efforts onto the definition of “defending” rather than firing out posts you think sound <winning>

No. But the lack of anyone else asking the question here is interesting.

Boring as it is, I would put a penny to a pound that the sort of person who racks up parking tickets like Pokemon cards is going to be very adjacent to (if not the same as) the sort of person who "forgets" to insure their car.

And a persons car insurance only covers them to driver other cars that already have an insurance policy in place.

Yep- absolutely

Ah. OK. My MIL has one and I’ve known others and they had a three hour limit stamped on the clock bit. Didn’t realise it was for double yellows.

Who keeps an out of date badge? Ridiculous.

And it sounds like she was on another continent at the time so if she wasn't there the car wouldn't been ticketed again anyway?

Either way it's not your fault. Just tell her you're not helping her again and she can piss off.

Your friend expected you to be psychic and know she had two blue badges and one was expired!! The situation is on her....she didn't tell you she had two blue badges and to check the expiry date, so the correct one is displayed.

Why would you check the expiry date???? You wouldn't automatically check this, because most people don't carry around expired badges, they destroy them!! You would assume the badge in the car is the correct badge and within date.

Your friend is a cheeky mare. She failed to pay numerous parking fines, and was in danger of her car being impounded. Asked for help, which being a friend, you obliged and because she fucked up, it's now your fault!!!

Several things are clear....1 this person isn't your friend. 2 she's irresponsible. 3 is incapable of accepting responsibility for her own behaviour.

Ditch her, and definitely don't pay the fines.

She’s a cheeky fucker. Absolutely do not pay.

Who keeps an out of date badge?

Many many thousands.

You asked if the DH was insured or was the insurance fully comp. Not whether the vehicle was insured full stop

suspect the reason no one asked that is it’s widely thought of as no big deal to take a quick drive in someone else’s car on the assumption they have fully comp and filed away as “no big deal” if they don’t.

Perhaps she'll try to claim that her car has been stolen whilst she was away?

Op why did you or rather your husband get involved?