What a complete cluster - some srious advice needed please

Clearly not the OP's fault, but not sure why you are bending over backwards to help your son here to the extent that you are going to go get the car back from the pound.

He's 20 and in the army, let him sort it out himself!

If he doesn't help, the son is very likely to just go with the plan of paying his mate £5k. It's hard, as a parent, to see your offspring make that kind of stupid choice when he could make some effort and reduce the overhead to less than £3k.
 
I said renewed, should have said new policy - sry. Son was taxing it using our address - we did not know until we got the failure to pay letter.

HUH? Can you tax a car without being the registered keeper? Surely the paperwork for the car would be in your sons friends name and tax would go to his address???
 
Something really odd about this, sorry.

Insurance companies don't just cancel for a bounced payment for a start.

Whilst the majority indeed don't, some will.

My father's days as a magistrate were spent mainly dealing with such cases,where a payment was missed and the policy subsequently cancelled by the insurance company and no amount of pleading by the driver concerned got them off, I got sick of him constantly warning me about this happening.
 
isn't there more to this (and the lad's mate, the car's owner, might be in trouble too)? If the car was on the road and the owner stopped taxing and insuring it, then shouldn't it have been SORN'd? ie. don't you legally need to insure a car if it's not sorn'd (even if you're not using it)?

Either his mate knew he was using the car, so he knew a SORN'd car was on the road or he didn't know it was being used, so the car was arguably stolen?

tbh, I read the original post slightly differently. Lad had insurance on his own car, and I could guess he was using his mate's under DOC cover. smashed it, only covered 3rd party, so unable to claim that ding (and a £2k ding on a £5k car is a pretty major ding). His own insurance died when his car was written off, thus leaving him driving this car uninsured.

I'd guess it would have only been flagged to the police if the registered owner on the v5 didn't have tax or insurance, and thus another problem if it's not sorn'd.

If it's not been sorn'd and the owner has no tax or insurance, won't it be impounded (and/or crushed) anyway? and vice-versa - sorn'd car being on the road?

I kinda think both the lad and his mate are in the proverbial and chances are the car is lost anyway.

If a car needs to be insured and taxed by the registered keeper, then I'd guess the impound would need to see proof of that, instead of anyone else turning up with their own insurance?
 
I'm not sure why anybody thinks £2k worth of damage ona £5k car is any more or less serious than £2k of damage on a £500 or £10,000 car - the value is largely irrelevant really (outside of an insurance claim)
 
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but a £5k car will be 2nd hand and thus the quote will/should be from a "cheapo" backyard independent bodyshop and you could arguably use cheaper parts to repair it (e.g. wing from a scrappy), if you're on a budget. £2k repair bill for a brand new £40k car could well disappear on v little work from a dealer (which you'd probably want to use over an independent place to keep your warranty).
 
I'm kinda curious as to what he hit/scraped to cause the #2k worth of damage... has he settled the other party outside of insurance?

Someone mentioned DOC being used... doubtful as he's 20 and when I was 20, I couldn't find any insurance policy that would give me DOC cover... that didn't appear on my policy until I turned 25 years old. Plus it was already mentioned, he was a named driver... no DOC, so he could have claimed that #2k on the car owner's insurance... however it would have inflated the owner's insurance costs for the next 3-5 years... so if it was a clutz move and "only" 2k and I had been the owner of the car and insurance policy... I would probably have asked the friend to put it right without involving the insurers or pay the hike in premiums.
 
My car isn't worth significantly more than £5k - wings from a scrappy or the likes wouldn't be going near it.

£2k worth of damage is £2k worth of damage

I'm curious too, the whole thing is all a bit odd, suspect there are a lot of half truths in the story
 
Son can't confirm what documentation he/me will need to collect the car from the police. The impound said the police will issue the release paperwork once they are content all is in order, insurance etc. Can't even confirm with Lincolnshire police what we need though, spent all yesterday either on hold or speaking to the wrong person.
 
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