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?

This is her problem , don't let her make it yours, don't agree to help her sort it out either. She's dodging paying fines and dragging you into it

What you’re saying makes no sense 😭 OPs husband doesn’t have a blue badge to lose!

I am responding to @TurtleGroove :

“also think it is important to point out to OP how foolish her and her husband have been and how he could also get in serious trouble for doing things like this“

so far serious trouble is a traffic warden waiting for him, and an imaginary crime of aiding and abetting blue badge fraud

The OPs DH can be prosecuted for misuse of the Blue Badge.
https://bluebadgesolicitors.co.uk/blog/blue-badge-misuse-examples

do you think that is going to happen?

She didn't pay her fines , has a disabled badge . But she can afford to be out of the country ? On long haul holiday ? She is a CF.

Yup. Not the OP’s circus, monkeys etc. Friend is just reaping the consequences of not paying her parking tickets. And that must have been a pretty hefty sum for bailiffs to be involved.

This is definitely not your fault. Your friend is the one who incurred parking tickets (even with a blue badge), has ignored reminders to the point of baliffa, has gone on holiday, rung YOU out of the blue for a big favour, failed to give you proper instructions and now is yelling at YOU? She can fuck the fuck off, and fuck off some more when she gets there.

She had money for a holiday but not to pay fines to keep an essential car (disabled) from being taken by the bailiffs.

Nope. This is on her. Don't be guilted into paying it for her.

How can she not afford her fines for a parking fine yet go out of the country on hoilday? Shes a cf. i would refuse to pay & I wouldn’t have anything to do with her.

Tbh OP unless your friend is in crisis she’s an incredibly CF and I’d have to point that out. She’s gone on holiday despite having unpaid tickets placing the car at risk of being taken so it wasn’t your problem to start with. Skip the holiday, pay the tickets, keep the car. Simples. Secondly she gives you incomplete information about how you can best help her. She could have taken the expired badge out of the car. She didn’t. She could have told you there were two badges so please check the expiry. She didn’t. As for finding £380 to have the car released absolutely not. Not your circus, not your monkeys. You tried to help she didn’t give you enough information to do that.

It's the a crime to move a car! The bailiffs hadn't seized it. They would have had to put a clamp on it. It's only a crime to remove the clamp.

Going against the grain (slightly) I can see why she thinks it's your fault - she specifically told you NOT to park in the disabled bay and you did it anyway. There were several days it was parked there (between the first and second ticket) during which you could have double checked with her but you didn't.

Presumably her argument is that if it wasn't in the disabled space then the traffic officer wouldn't have checked for a badge, realised it was expired and impounded it.

However I also agree with those saying everything else is still her fault, enough of the story is still dodgy you can't assume that that is the real reason it was impounded and that she sounds like the sort of "friend" it wouldn't be a hardship to lose from your life! So wouldn't pay her the money.

Its not your fault nor your responsibility to pay these fines. She should not be using expired disabled badges and should be ensuring she isnt being fined.

Personally I would get dh to drop the car back at hers, give her the keys and take zero responsibility for it.

Post hers keys. Block and ignore. She is not worth the drama.
You dont owe her anything

Continuing the hyperbole about all the criminal acts OPs DH could be in serious trouble for 😭

She seems like the type who will report her car stolen to try get out of this.

Don't delete any related text messages and keep a record of the call logs so that can be eliminated quickly.

So pay to get the car back from wherever it is?

She could have received a text message from the bailiff. They may have sent letters to her advising her to pay. If she ignored those letters then they would text her. They use multiple sources to trace details like phone numbers. However, I imagine she had previously had debts with them and they had her number on record.

If the car had a valid blue badge displayed in it belonging to the registered keeper, (not an expired badge) they would have been unlikely to remove it to the Pound. They could have clamped it and the law doesn't say they can't remove. However, it's policy not to in many areas due to the inconvenience it could cause a disabled driver.

She's taking the piss. You've done her a favour, she should have been clearer in her instructions

Her own fault, if she had paid the fines the car wouldn’t have been threatened with bailiffs coming to seize.
Let her sort her own mess.

What an arsehole she is.

Why would you need to display the badge if it was legally parked in a normal space? Were there any restrictions? If she is registered disabled the bailiff would not take the car unless it was for more than outstanding parking charges. Agree she needs to take responsibility for this, her plan did not work out, and not put this on you.

I'm confused. Why would they have given the first parking ticket (once you had moved it)? It wasnt parked illegally, just because you HAVE a blue badge doesn't mean you can only park in disabled bays?

Whole story sounds a bit dodgy to me.

I suppose you could say that your husband moving the car incurred two more tickets plus the fee to get her car back.

Whether or not that means he should pay Idk tbh.

Of course the situation only arose because she has unpaid fines.

He didn't have to get involved though!

@bakingmama76
What she was asking you to do was illegal.
If you are a non-disabled driver, and do not have the disabled person with you when driving a car you cannot display someone else's blue badge when you park is a criminal offence. your husband could have been fined up to £1000 and prosecuted and the blue badge confiscated
Blue Badge Misuse and Fraud Explained | Parking Patrol
Also was he even insured to drive the car?
Unless his insurance covers him for third party cover for driving other cars with their owners permission (which is becoming more unusual ) then your husband could have been prosecuted for driving without insurance.