Thanks Armitage, a useful article.

Although maybe no legal rights, my understanding is that the majority of companies are happy to sell the car back : they don't want it. We had a similar situation, bought the car back and had a local car body place repair it to a very good standard at a fraction of what an insurance company pays for repairs. It may affect the sale value when changing the car but if it is not a high value car it probably doesn't matter that much. If I remember correctly you will need to have the car MOTd to prove it is roadworthy. Check the value of the car against prices locally to make sure you can negotiate sufficient for write-off. I didn't and with what I now know would have negotiated a better deal. Obviously decisions like this are all personal choice. Hope all goes well.

As a general rule, if you're claiming directly off the other parties Insurer they will normally allo you to keep the written off car after deducting the salvage value from your settlement.

The above is assuming the car is not extensively damaged.

Please bear in mind that with regards to the link Armitage provider, it should be noted that if you're dealing directly with the third party Insurers then they do not have to abide by anything the Ombudsman says. Having said that, most decent Insurers will abide by most of the Ombudsmans guidance

Hi all, there are still not been a settlement and my main question is can she have a her car back or is it in some sort of legal black hole where she neither has the car or the settlement?

The Ombudsman is very clear on this in that the car is still your property until the Insurers settle with you.

The Ombudsman does not insist the Insurers offer the salvage to the policyholder although most will (Excluding Hastings) unless extensive damage.

"

When a vehicle is “written off”, the insurer becomes the owner of the salvage once the consumer accepts payment of the full market value. If the consumer asks to keep the salvage, the insurer is entitled to deduct what it would have been able to sell the salvage for – though this is usually not very much.

Consumers sometimes complain that the insurer (or its agent) disposed of the salvage before paying the full market-value. At this stage, the vehicle still belongs to the consumer, so we look to see if the insurer asked the consumer’s to the settlement of the claim – even if the insurer says it was only acting in the public interest by keeping a badly-damaged vehicle off the road.

If we find the insurer disposed of the vehicle without the consumer’s consent and there were items belonging to the consumer inside, we are likely to tell the insurer to pay the cost of replacing these – usually on a like-for-like (rather than a new-for-old) basis.

If we think that the policyholder was unfairly deprived of the salvage, we may tell the insurer to pay compensation for any financial loss or distress and inconvenience we think the consumer has experienced."

financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_...l

Edited by dacouch on 11/03/2014 at 14:41

You have the option of cancelling the claim with Direct Line and claiming directly from the third party.

You have no contract with the third party Insurer so it's highly unlikely they would try and retain the salvage.

To do this you would need to contact them and ask them to handle the claim and pay any costs DL have acrued which they will not normally mind doing

There's a crucial spelling mistake in my last post.

It should read that as you have no contract with the third party insurer, it's highly unlikely they will try and retain the salvage.

So if you transfer to claim directly against the third party insurer you should be able to retain the salvage although obviously they will deduct the salvage value from your claims settlement.

If you go down this route, make sure they agree to pay any costs so far accrued eg storage charges etc

* the damage is a big groove down the near side, a ripped off wing mirror and the passenger door will not open.
* I reckon the car is still drivable and legal but she is being denied it!

MOT fail if you can't open the passenger door so probably not legal.

www.motuk.co.uk/manual_620.htm