What a complete cluster - some srious advice needed please

Terminel

Terminel

Terminel

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17 Aug 2010
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291
So my son has managed to legendarily knacker himself and the more I dig the worse it gets and I don't know where to begin really but I'll try!

Son had a car which he bought with a smallish loan from us, his parents, which he sold for what I suspect was a pitance due to it being a class C write-off and the engine going boom. He then borrows a friends car where my son is a named driver on his insurance. The owner then goes abroad and is not due back anytime soon.

Wait - it gets better! So he dings the car and is looking at a £2000 cosmetic repair. Does not report it to the insurance, not sure if he could anyway, and looks to sort it out at 'whenever time' in the future.

Wait - it gets even better!! So two weeks ago he gets pulled by the police and has been charged with driving without insurance as the insurance payment bounced. Car is impounded and the boy is looking at £800 just for insrance on top of £500+ to get the car released. So all in 3.5k for a car thats not even his.

So where to go from here - I believe he is thinking about paying his friend for the value of the car, about 5K, and not collecting the car.

What a cluster! Not even thought about the consequences of loosing his license at this stage.
 
Claim he's adopted and nothing to do wityh you. :p

In all seriousness, he'll lose not only a lot of money for this but also his license. He'll have to re-do everything from scratch.
 
Thekwango said:
expensive lesson! guess if he learns something from the lesson then at least that's something
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This unfortunately. Sounds like he's at least got some money? You don't have to start throwing cash at him? As said, it could have been a lot worse. Give him a lecture and let him sort the mess out himself. He'll learn a lot!
 
pay the fine tell the "friend" who left him in the lurch with no insurance his car is going to be crushed if he doesn't pay to have it released.
 
Terminel said:
Wait - it gets better! So he dings the car and is looking at a £2000 cosmetic repair. Does not report it to the insurance, not sure if he could anyway, and looks to sort it out at 'whenever time' in the future.

Wait - it gets even better!! So two weeks ago he gets pulled by the police and has been charged with driving without insurance as the insurance payment bounced. Car is impounded and the boy is looking at £800 just for insrance on top of £500+ to get the car released. So all in 3.5k for a car thats not even his.

So where to go from here - I believe he is thinking about paying his friend for the value of the car, about 5K, and not collecting the car.
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He is giving his friend £5k and not collecting it the smart option?

£2k to fix it. £500 to get the car released. That's HALF the cost of just abandoning the car. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

You could collect the car yourself if you insured it for a short term period or perhaps added it to your insurance - he doesn't need to buy a policy himself, it just needs to be insured to be collected.

I am struggling to understand how he thinks the smart move is to abandon the car and pay £5k to his friend :confused:
 
[TW]Fox;28405038 said:
You could collect the car yourself if you insured it for a short term period or perhaps added it to your insurance - he doesn't need to buy a policy himself, it just needs to be insured to be collected.
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hell if all else fails £200 quid could have it picked up by a truck and delivered.
 
Has he told you the truth about the insurance ? Why would the friend (who is not coming back any time soon) pay tax and insurance for a car they are not using - the rational decision would be to SORN it until they get back.
 
The best way to do it will likely be to start a new policy on the car that has little to no admin fee for cancelling within 14 days then bin it once the car is collected.

I'm fairly sure there is a note on my policy that it can't be used for insurance purposes to release anything other than the primary vehicle - though maybe i'm getting mixed up on that
 
[TW]Fox;28405038 said:
He is giving his friend £5k and not collecting it the smart option?

£2k to fix it. £500 to get the car released. That's HALF the cost of just abandoning the car. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

You could collect the car yourself if you insured it for a short term period or perhaps added it to your insurance - he doesn't need to buy a policy himself, it just needs to be insured to be collected.

I am struggling to understand how he thinks the smart move is to abandon the car and pay £5k to his friend :confused:
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This.

Also, if he genuinely believed he was insured at the time, and his friend hadn't mentioned about not keeping up with the payments, then he could take it to court, plead guilty, but use a "special reasons not to endorse" argument to explain the situation. They may well be sympathetic towards him provided he can convince them that he drove in good faith, believing he was covered.
 
No offence to the OP, but I smell BS throughout the story. I don't think I'd believe his son without some corroborating evidence.
 
Standard insurance is a no go it has to be a specialised insurance company that deals with short term car imponded cases hence £800.

Car is impounded in Lincoln and we live in Wiltshire so logistically a nightmare.

Value of the car is around 5k but I suspect he is hoping his friend will give some sort of mates rates.

Son was paying car tax and insurance from his own bank account I think.

@Burnsy2023, the police letter about the driving offence arrived at our house as that is the address he gave so we opened it. Probably some details he may have not told us.

Not throwing any money at this or him, his issue to deal with.

Plus off on holiday in a few days so time is not on my side to help - not cancelling the holiday!
 
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