SORN'd UK Car written-off whilst parked off-road: PLS HELP?!!

[andyh4]

I do not want to get into the ins and outs of SORN in France and whether UK insurance covers you for long term stays in the UK, nor whether the insurance is valid or not if you are in France. (Frankly we have done these subjects to death so many times - and probably will have to again.)

BUT one thing you have latterly written does suggest that the rabbits have been running in the wrong direction.

You have said, I sold the car 2 days before.

The problem is no longer yours.

You are no longer the damaged party.

Your purchaser - or their insurance - is the damaged party. You only need to collect the delinquent sales payment from your customer.

[dave21478]

I dont take offense from what strangers write on the internet, so dont worry about it.

If you had spilled the whole story from the start, things would have been much clearer - if you read this thread from our point of view, with the information coming through piecemeal as the replies develop, it definitely sounds more than a little bit dodgy.

Anyway, I would suspect that YOU are going to have to chase this claim through the other drivers insurer as I very much doubt they will be in a hurry to just cough up - whilst it may turn out that they do have to pay, they will take great pleasure in dragging it out for as long as possible in the hope that you will just go away.

Assuming he has returned his copy of the constat to his insurers, you should chase them up and see what their intentions are. If it is an insurer with local offices, try this in person as its too easy to get the run-around on the phone line, although you may have no choice but to deal with a centralised claims department if they are organised anything like UK insurers.

I wonder how they will value your car though? It was mentioned earlier in the thread and I have heard it myself elsewhere but people mention that cars without paperwork are valued just as scrap metal - ie 150€ or so, but I assumed this applied to French cars without a carte gris. With a UK car, will they value it at UK prices? how will they know these prices? In an ideal world, they would use the French Argus price, which is often double or even triple its UK value.

I have never had a claim in France, but the one thing I have learned the hard way through UK claims both in my own personal experience and from others is that you should absolutely NOT let them take the car away for any kind of inspection - it ends up in a storage yard, usually tagged onto a breakers yard somewhere, and since most cars are written off anyway, they take zero care of it, it is humpfed about with a forklift truck, spare wheel, tool kit, radio, fuel in the tank etc tend to go missing and it gets generally abused - all of which reduces is apparent value as far as the assessor is concerned when they finally get round to looking at it.

If at all possible, keep hold of the car and have it assessed on the spot. Again, going on UK form, and this may not necessarily apply in France, but if you do this and DO get a payout, then the car becomes the property of the insurer. Since they dont really want it and dont want to pay for it to be uplifted, you are often given the chance to buy it back at scrap value. That way you keep the car and have the payout check, so you can then repair the car with used parts if possible, or sell it in a damaged state.

Years back, I had a Calibra which was written off due to a shunt that stove in the door and wing. The cost of garage repairs with new parts was more than its value so it was written off. I received a £2000 payout and bought the car back for £200 or so, repaired it myself with a couple of hundred pounds of parts from a breakers yard, the difference was mine to keep and my car was back on the road.

[Pickles]

[quote user="andyh4"]BUT one thing you have latterly written does suggest that the rabbits have been running in the wrong direction.

You have said, I sold the car 2 days before.

The problem is no longer yours.

You are no longer the damaged party.

Your purchaser - or their insurance - is the damaged party. You only need to collect the delinquent sales payment from your customer.[/quote]

Hmmmm... Can I give an alternative view of the situation? In general the sale isn't concluded until the whole amount is paid. So, for example, when we sold our French car, the buyer came along, looked at the car, left a deposit and then a couple of days later came back with the rest of the money, we filled in the forms and off they went. The car was still our property, and still insured by us, in the meantime. The deposit, dependent on the agreement, may be refundable or not.

In the current case, if I am reading this correctly, the state of the car changed (to say the least!) between the buyer leaving a deposit and coming back to complete the deal. Under those circumstances, I would have thought that the buyer would be entirely within their rights to not complete the sale and to expect to get back their deposit. In this situation, the car is still the OP's property and it is up to him to claim off the insurance of the other party - and get the claim lodged immediately.

Or am I missing something here?

[dave21478]

You are on the money Pickles.

I know for a fact that if I had left a deposit on a car and before I could collect it and pay the balance it had been damaged, I would be having my deposit back and the deal would be off.

[Chancer]

My first car, a Bedford Beagle was sold for £150 and I had taken (and drunk!) the deposit but being young and stupid I was still racing around in the car taking even less care of it than if it were mine [:(]

I didnt close the bonnet properly, the secondary catch was broken so it whipped up and wrapped itself around the windscreen and roof, luckily no-one else was involved but the bonnet even after a good kicking was very twisted and the frnt of the roof was bent and buckled.

I must even then have had good negotiating skills because the guy really wanted the car, needed more like to get to work so I ended up giving him a fiver back and the remains of the paint that I had used to respray it.

I am anything but proud of this now and am ashamed to say that back then, at that age I probably was proud of what I did [:(]

I second everything Dave has said about letting the insurers take away your vehicle, you will lose any negotiating advantage that you might ever have had as well as all your personal effects in the vehicle, I have gone as far as arranging my own recovery home and not using the insurers assistance line, subsequently the insurers repair partner (breakers yard more like) turned up and were very very insistent and forcefull that they were taking the vehicle, that  it was the insurers property etc etc, this has happened a few times and I always stood my ground but it was very intimidating, most people would be pleased to see the wreck away from their home but like Dave I usually profitted from the payout and retention of salvage.

[derf]

Some info HERE regarding what happens to a written off vehicle or considered to be in a dangerous condition.

Les