Car clamped in error - need urgent help

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Hi,

if it helps, when we get the car on the road again (works on the damn thing) or if Hubby goes there on a drop, we will take photos of the car park for you, its the main hotel car park? Hubby is a truck driver and sometimes delivers to the hotel.

if we can get there, we will get you pics.

P

Hi Puffrose, the car is there right now, parked in front of reception. (and no longer clamped).

Because we thought it was a genuine mistake and would be rectified, we didn't take photos.

We were either on the phone trying to sort it out, or rushing to get to Leeds for a rental car before the rental office closed.

[bluebottle]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Hi Puffrose, the car is there right now, parked in front of reception. (and no longer clamped).

Because we thought it was a genuine mistake and would be rectified, we didn't take photos.

We were either on the phone trying to sort it out, or rushing to get to Leeds for a rental car before the rental office closed.

Check for any damage to the wheelarch, bodywork, suspension and steering mechanism to your car caused by VEAS and their house-trained gorillas. Photograph it and sent them the bill. I would definitely make a complaint to DVLA about this. VEAS are behaving like a cowboy clamping firm and DVLA needs to call time on their behaviour by rescinding their contract and taking VEL/CIE enforcement back in-house. When DVLA clamped a neighbour's car a few years ago and he rang their office to complain, a DVLA official was out within an hour, removed the clamp and personally apologised for the mistake and inconvenience caused. As you have found out, you don't get that with VEAS, only bullying, lies and more lies. Private contractors are costing the British taxpayer far more than politicians claim they save and it is time to force the politicians to wake up and smell the coffee as to the reality of the private sector.

[Guest]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I will check and come back to you, Davyb.

Update: I've just spoken to DVLA about this. The letters are the V11 Reminder and a Warning Letter which DVLA send out which is, according to them, a "complimentary" service. My suspicion is there is something, somewhere that requires them to do this, otherwise, how can they justify the expense of printing V11s?

OK so this this is not pre-requisite to enforcement as stated, as far as we know.

D

[Guest]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

if you renew your VEL online or over the telephone using DVLA's Electronic Vehicle Re-Licensing (EVL) Service, as long as you have carried out the transaction before midnight on the last day of your current VEL's "in force" period, you can use your vehicle on a public road for up to 5 working days after it expires. If the transaction takes place after midnight on the last day, the 5 working days' "grace period" does not apply.

You need to get onto DVLA about this straightaway. If they can force VEAS to deliver your car back to your home, all the better. If not, then you may have to fork out £286 + VAT and reclaim it. But you do need to deal with it today.

I was under the impression that this was the first time the OP licensed the vehicle, so would the grace period apply?

D

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I was under the impression that this was the first time the OP licensed the vehicle, so would the grace period apply?

D

Yes, there is no grace period, although the DVLA on their website said there was grace until 11th June midnight because of the extended bank holidays for renewals!! (why, what difference)

You can see on the DVLA website the car ran out of tax in February.

We bought it, taxed it then drove it Friday morning, June 8th. The car was clamped Saturday morning 9th June, photo earlier in thread.

I have now spoken to the Hotel. They say they have already looked at the CCTV (strange - why?) and you cannot see whether the car was taxed or what happened at night.

I said I'd like a solicitor or their clerk to look at it. They said its protected by Data Protection.

I said, OK, I'll come and look at it, it can only be my data you are protecting. They said NO.

This stinks even more, with every stone you upturn.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

personally i would have a solicitor call them anyhow. like to see them tell a solicitor he doesnt know the dpa!

[Bill-K]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

This is 'The Man on the Clapham Omnibus here.'

A few years back (OK..20, alright ?), we had the dubious pleasure of a static residence on a caravan park for a while - while I was 'resting' in between lucrative contracts, you understand !!! Well, the park owner's young son decided to use the park to practise for his driving test, and would regularly drive round the park with his girlfriend in his untaxed and uninsured 'boom-box' (which was loosely attached to a Vauxhall Nova by 4 self-tapping screws). This was before t'Interweb hit the village, so the info was a bit sparse, and I probably used the nearest Reference Library 15 miles down the track.

Anywayz - the impression I got from those dusty volumes was that there is NO need for a vehicle to be taxed by the DVLA if it is on private ground - as opposed to a public highway. My interpretation of this was that this guy was just as entitled to drive his Vauxhall Nova 'off the road' as the neighbouring farmer was entitled to drive his untaxed elderly Massey-Ferguson tractor in his fields. How the vehicle came to be upon that ground is NOT part of the equation. How a car finds its way into a hotel car park is therefore, IMHO, NOT part of the equation. It was NOT on the Queen's Highway - and probably had more right to be there than Madness had a right to perform 'Our House' on the roof of the largest 'Council House' in the UK., recently.

So - for someone to march down that caravan park's drive and clamp this poor testosterone-powered guy's pride and joy (and his somewhat shrivelled car - while they were at it) was nowt short of trespass - and really quite rude, IMHO.

But I digress. The point I am ineptly trying to make is that I recall that there was a legal difference between privately-owned land to which the public has no access, and such land that the public DOES have access to. So - a hotel car park, and a caravan park may be privately owned, but the public STILL has access to that land, and has a right to be protected from risk or danger. The CLEAR impression I got from that was that this 'boom-box' did NOT need to be taxed by the DVLA, as it was not burning rubber on her Madge's Roadway - BUT it DID still need to carry third-party insurance. That made sense to me, as there were no end of privately-owned caravans, kidz & barbecues that could be destroyed by a badly-driven vehicle. He needed to get insurance, even if he may not have needed Road Tax.

I guess I'm saying that these clampers MAY be under the impression they can clamp vehicles on private land for having no tax, because of this (entirely reasonable, IMO) principle. But, unless the vehicle is in motion at the time it was being clamped, then surely there is no case. It was a car park, and by definition, a place to park cars. The car was CLEARLY not being driven - no matter where the b100dy Tax Disc was being displayed.

No need for Road Tax, and NO need for insurance, I reckon - until the vehicle moves.

Ting...ting...my stop next !

[Guest]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

HI BIll
I think the situation is that the car must have a license unless it is on the owners main place of residence or place of business (if they are a car retailer).

So parking on the drive next to your house is OK, parking over the road on a bit of land you happen to own isn't. So they are legally entitled to clamp on the hotel car park.

I don't understand why the Hotel seem to be behaving this way, it can't be good for business having the dvla clamping their customers cars. I wonder if there is some hidden agenda going on?

D

[bluebottle]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

One way of getting the hotel to allow access to the CCTV footage is to serve a notice on them under Section 35, Data Protection Act 1998. This doesn't cost you £10 like an SAR under Section 7 of the Act does. Both provisions are avenues you can go down in order to obtain the footage.

[Guest]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

One way of getting the hotel to allow access to the CCTV footage is to serve a notice on them under Section 35, Data Protection Act 1998. This doesn't cost you £10 like an SAR under Section 7 of the Act does. Both provisions are avenues you can go down in order to obtain the footage.

I was under the impression that section 35 of the DPA wa used by the court or in cases where legal proceedings were under way.
Would this be appropriate here?

35 Disclosures required by law or made in connection with legal proceedings etc.

(1)Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is required by or under any enactment, by any rule of law or by the order of a court.
(2)Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is necessary—
(a)for the purpose of, or in connection with, any legal proceedings (including prospective legal proceedings), or
(b)for the purpose of obtaining legal advice,

D

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I was under the impression that as long as adequate signage showed CCTV was in operation, the people on the CCTV waived their rights to annonymity (spelling?).

Mr R has text his office asking for photos of the hotel car park for you, hes still got our car in bits

[bluebottle]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Section 35(2), Data Protection Act 1998 also refers to the "purposes of exercising, establishing or defending legal rights". In my considered judgement, the hotel's management has some explaining to do and the OP needs to send an email to DVLA's Wheelclamping Unit.

As long as the VEL was on display, VEAS are on very dangerous ground legally. If, as has been suggested, they covered the VEL before taking photographs, that is serious. Also, it is serious if they doctored any photographs with something like Photobucket. A parking company working for a local authority did this by changing the time on the digital photograph and details of the parking restrictions plate on another digital photograph. The person responsible was arrested, charged and convicted of Perverting the Course of Justice and received a jail sentence for what they did.

[Guest]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Hi
35 is not a request it is an exemption.

Section 35 does not compel the data controller to release information it merly says that he can disclose data in certain circumstances without breaching the DPA.

It is generally used by litigants that require information on data subjects which would normally be subject to data protection principle restrictions.

The hotel could just ignore the request and the subject would have to get a court order to compel them to comply.

So it would be entirely inappropriate for this purpose.

I agree with the rest of your post though.

D

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I cannot thank you all enough for your help and concern over this matter.

I've decided I'm going to go and get the vehicle myself on Monday. The cost will be the train fare from Aberdeen to Barnsley (£65), a taxi to the hotel £10?) and an overnight stay on the way back (£45). The car is virtually full of fuel anyway. This is far cheaper than the quotes we've had, which we just cannot afford right now, even if we do get it repaid to us later.

I'm going to see if I can get hold of the CCTV film, or even see it live, as it should show us driving in during daylight hours, the episode that was the clamping, and the evidence that we didn't put the tax disc into the car in the morning - I don't think we even unlocked it until about 2.30pm, there was no need, it wasn't going anywhere.

The worst thing was that we were selling the wife's petrol guzzling Jeep (handy up here in winter) but now she's needed to keep it to get to work and re-tax it, we've lost the buyer who quite rightly felt very let down and will probably never talk to us again.

The snowball effects of these Cowboys actions are absolutely shattering for us, we are still living and breathing it every moment and I guess will do until the car is here.

By then, the DD's will start bouncing because we didn't get the Jeep money and we have all this added expense, so far over £200 and that's before I set foot out of the dor to collect the car..

I sound like a great big whimp but you cannot believe the couple of years we've had from the moment I got swine flu which led to the pneumonia which led to us both losing our jobs.

I've finally finished the letter to the DVLA, but I don't know if I should put it on here in case someone seeing it means I cannot sue them at a later date. The comments and suggestions from this board are all represented in the letter in a way.

Or............. Should I just involve Watchdog or the Daily Mail? Neither seem to have much time for the DVLA or the Clampers.

The fact that the Clampers only download the DVLA info regarding taxed / untaxed cars once a week is absolutely shocking.

If they have the ability to collect this info once a week, they have the ability to collect it daily.

They are out and out Cowboys who wear a Government hat instead of a Stetson, but their breath still stinks of horse ***** every time they open their mouths.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

hey ww,
I will get a few quotes for you, and find out the number of the best taxi firms to use, however when you come in to Barnsley, you will be on the taxi rank side of the station.
I can have this info for you tomorrow, my neices are asleep atm and I dont want to call my sister at this time, but I will do it tomorrow.

p