How to get relatives car off my property

[Avacadosprinkles]

A relative has left their car in my garage for the last 10 years. I want to sell my house and they won't move it. They could move it to their own property but don't want to. It was always meant to be temporary. I have brought it up several times over the years and they just brush me off with excuses every time. I have ran out of patience. What legal route do I need to take. I don't want to dispose of or sell the car I just want to get it towed to their driveway, but Google seems to suggest I could be prosecuted for criminal damage if I do

No, I have strongly acknowledged your need, in your situation, for legal advice and my wish you get a good solicitor.

It is also reasonable, some in not too dissimilar circumstances, should be able to sort this without it. Good luck.

👍

Sounds like there is a lot more to this. I’m guessing you inherited the family home and your sibling inherited the car, and they are actively trying to prevent you from selling the property.

If me, I would see a solicitor and let them sort it legally.

There is no more to this than what I have posted

Difficult with the family dynamics, but likely the most straightforward route would be to use the tort law as a lever, even if you don’t intend to sell the car.

If you have a family group chat, you could draft a post for that that tells people you agreed to store the car temporarily 10 years ago, it has now been over 10 years and you’ve been asking for the car to be removed for a significant time. You want to be able to move house and need the car gone in order to list your home for sale. Relative X is still refusing to move the car even though you want to move house and therefore unfortunately they’re leaving you no choice but to take legal proceedings. You hope though that before you do this a family member might be able to step in and talk sense into them that, and that if anyone can help it would be very welcome from you.

You can then issue the tort notice with a clear conscience, hopefully family will step in or the person will realise that you’re really serious and arrange to remove the car before the deadline. If they don’t remove the car before the deadline you then have the option of disposing of it you’re not legally bound to dispose of it the day that deadline is up.

That would allow you to put your house up for sale and know that you have a legal route out of the car being stuck there without it taking months and months, And ultimately, if they’re just being difficult and refuse to remove it when your house sells you have the legal option to sell it and give them the money.

Prob a silly question, tho maybe relevant to why car hasn’t been moved?
(or already answered…tho can’t see amongst all OP’s replies?)
Why does relative want to leave this vehicle at OP’s property/garage?

They've made it quite clear with their actions they couldn't give a shit

I get why you (quite rightly) want to make sure you're safe legally, @Avacadosprinkles, but if the above is the case what's the point in over-worrying about family relationships?

It sounds as if the car owner will howl and scream no matter WHAT you do, and if various relatives want to throw themselves into the drama that's surely a matter for them, so personally I'd just get on and do it and draw a line under this nonsense

They don't want to move it. There isn't any particular reason. I have asked. The only reasons have only been excuses. They can't move it until they clear their garage. Their garage is leaking, they need to fix that first. The car needs some work doing to it before they can move it. They're going to sell it anyway do point in moving it now. And on and on the excuses go over the years
The real reason is anyone's guess, I assume it's easier to store at my property out of their way and just come round to admire their car every now and again

If other relatives decide that I'm the person in the wrong after all this, when I've waited this long, asked nicely and then followed the correct legal process and eventually deliver the car back to their property. Then I won't be worrying myself about them. But I can be self assured I've done everything I can to deal with this reasonably and that there was nothing else I could have done to prevent family fall out

OP, is there a world in which you could write them a dated, recorded-delivery letter, email and WhatsApp all with the same wording saying: I am hereby rescinding my temporary offer to store your car on my property, which had only ever been intended as a short-term offer. You no longer have my permission to store your vehicle at my property. I am therefore giving you notice to remove your car from my property in 28 days, with a deadline of DD/MM/YYYY. If you fail to do so by this date, I will take this as permission from you for me to have your car towed to your property/off a cliff/round the back of Tesco.

@Avacadosprinkles

Best of luck with this, hope you find a good solicitor and it's a relatively 'simple' process.

I'd be interested to know what the solicitor tells you, but be sure to ask him/her if that's OK. There have been threads regarding property or items in 'dispute' where solicitors have told OPs to either stop posting about the matter or to have their threads deleted. If I were you, I'd mention your thread and ask them what they advise.

Ha ha. I honestly think the OP is making mountains out of molehills.

Confirm the cars registered keeper via the DVLA.

Instruct a solicitor to give them formal notice to remove it and set a fair rate for daily storage until they remove it.

Nor sure of the value of the car - but once I got to that value I would try to take possession of the car to get rid or pass it onto a bailiff after following debt collection processes who can seize their property (their car on your property ).

Unfortunately, there isn’t a nice way to go about this.

Does your house insurance have legal cover? If so, contact them first and ask for advice as this would be free.
if your house is mortgaged then the mortgage company have a stake in the house and may also offer you legal advice as part of that.
good luck

OP - I understand you want to do this properly, and understand the cost and timescales. But you also have to look at the risks if you do deal with it in a more practical and likely cheaper and quicker way.

if you can arrange for it to be carefully removed and put on their property then (1) they will have suffered no damage so won’t be able to successfully sue you (2) I don’t believe the police would go anywhere near taken action against you. They are busy and will consider it a private dispute where the owner has had no loss / damage to their property.

When I was a lawyer the first thing we advised clients was on the risks if they did not comply with the contract etc ie was the other party really likely to take any action.

If there some land on their property (like a drive) you can arrange for it to be moved onto by a truck?

No advice, but just to add that it's a complete nightmare isn't it. We had a similar thing at my mum's house with a friend who left her car there and never collected it. It isn't as simple as "get it towed", obviously.
Wishing you luck with legal route as 10 years on we are still getting nowhere with it all!

Absolutely agree. BiL is a solicitor and has some experience in this area. I showed him the thread and then posted his advice in reply to OP’s question as to whether she could send a letter before action without a solicitors’ involvement. I confirmed that she could, that it was fairly straightforward, told her what needed to be done and copied and pasted a letter template from a legal website.

I explained the pitfalls if OP took it on herself to follow some of the frankly ludicrous suggestions, and pointing out that if OP wants to keep it legal to avoid giving her seemingly litigious relative any excuse to take action against her, then this was potentially the best, and cheapest way to go.

Cue a slew of posters telling me I was wrong and OP could just basically get a tow truck and deliver it to her relatives property - no thought of what will happen if the vehicle is damaged in the process, or relative denies permission for the truck to enter their property. Even more ludicrous suggestions to just dump it on the road outside their property even though it’s sorned and illegal to do so !! It’s almost as though posters want her to get into trouble.

But OP/tow truck company can’t just rock up and dump it on their land. They would need permission - which, going on what OP has said, is unlikely to be given.

Legally they may require permission, and if the tow truck / low loader company won’t do it then I understand that. I’m sure there are companies that would though. If it is physically possible that is (most people who have drives don’t have locked gates).

But what I’m saying is that once it’s done any remedy the CF relative is likely to pursue won’t work because he hasn’t suffered any loss. It doesn’t matter if it’s trespass (civil) if he doesn’t have any loss.

I think 'disposal' means that it can be disposed of by whatever means you see fit, and that would include disposing of it by way of returning it to the owner's property.

Follow the tort process and put it up for sale for £500, send him the link and I'll bet he collects it

If people haven't had this kind of experience, with a relative who is extremely difficult, I imagine it must be hard to understand. Good luck dealing with it all, OP. I can empathise and wish you well.

You'd think if they cared enough about it to potentially get legal over it being returned back to them they'd care enough to get it moved if they thought it would be disposed of.

Fucking hell. At this rate, I’m of a mind to come and move the sodding thing myself 😂

Are you in a work Union or does your employer offer employee assistance? I've used my Union legal advice service twice, once related to a boundary issue and the second time when a holiday cottage tried to bill us for damage we didn't cause. It was completely free to use, we had a telephone consultation to explain the issue, they sent us template letters to use, and helped us word our response. Definitely worth looking into at least to kick the process off and find out what might be involved/costs if you need to go to court (ok not sure how far they would take the process as we resolved both issues at an early stage)