Practical advice
Evaluated legal framework for car removal without criminal liability exposure
Good news: the "criminal damage" worry you saw is almost certainly a red herring for what you're planning. Criminal damage requires actually damaging property — simply moving an intact car isn't that. What you actually need to worry about is a civil claim (trespass to goods or "conversion"), which could arise if you're not careful about how you go about it. Here's the relevant framework in England & Wales:
Your legal relationship with the car
You're what's called a "gratuitous bailee" — you're holding someone else's property, without payment, and without a fixed end date (even though it was meant to be temporary). The relative is the "bailor." This relationship gives you some rights, but they're not unlimited.
The relevant law: Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977
This Act exists precisely for situations like yours — someone else's property sitting on your premises that they won't collect. Under section 12, if the bailor is in breach of an obligation to take delivery of the goods, or the bailee can give notice imposing such an obligation, the bailee has certain rights. To use this, notice must be given in writing — delivered to the bailor, left at their address, or sent by post — and it must specify your name and address, give sufficient particulars of the goods and where they're held, and state that the goods are ready for delivery. Individual Insolvency RegisterLegislation.gov.uk
This Act is mainly used by landlords and storage companies as a route to eventually sell uncollected goods after notice expires. Since you don't want to sell — you just want to relocate the car to the relative's own property — your situation is actually simpler and lower-risk than a full disposal case. You're not converting their property to your own use or someone else's; you're returning it to them. But you should still do this properly:
Practical steps I'd recommend
- Send a formal written notice (email plus recorded-delivery letter is good practice) stating: the garage space was always temporary, you're selling the house by [date], and you require the car collected by a specific reasonable deadline (e.g., 4–6 weeks).
- State clearly what happens if the deadline passes — that you'll arrange for the vehicle to be transported to their address at your cost, and ask them to confirm they'll allow access/delivery there.
- Use a professional vehicle transport/towing company, not a DIY tow — this protects you if any dispute arises about damage, and gives you a paper trail.
- Photograph/video the car's condition before it's moved, and again on delivery.
- Keep copies of all correspondence — texts, emails, the letters. This "brush off" pattern over years is exactly the kind of thing worth having documented if this ever escalated.
- Check access — you'll need the relative's cooperation (or at least non-objection) to actually deliver the car onto their driveway, since you can't have a truck drive onto their private property without permission. If they're likely to refuse delivery too, that's worth flagging to them explicitly in your notice.
Given the house sale timeline
Because you have a real deadline, it may be worth paying a solicitor for one properly drafted letter (a "letter before action" style notice) rather than doing it entirely yourself — a formal legal letter often gets a response that years of asking hasn't. This needn't be expensive; many solicitors offer fixed fees for a single letter.
One more thing worth flagging: I'm not a solicitor, and family dynamics plus property law can get tangled — if the relative pushes back hard or claims some kind of right to keep it there (e.g., disputes about what was "agreed"), it would be worth getting proper legal advice at that point rather than relying on general guidance like this.