There is a local guy who buys a car from an auction, tidies it up and puts it on sale on the main road. There is plenty of parking spaces and he is legally parked. Is parked parallel to the pavement, valid road tax etc. The car has a handwritten for sale sign. Today noticed a yellow sticker on the windscreen. It is from the council stating it is illegally parked and is marked for removal.
Why is that?
Could it be someone complained he is a trader?
I read somewhere here that there is an old law which states it is illegal to put up a car for sale on the public road or something similar. Is this true and what is the law called?
{subject line altered to reflect content - PU }
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Our local council in conjunction with the police has also started to get such vehicles off the road.
Part of the reason is that many are parked where they can/do cause a serious obstruction to the main traffic flows.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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He was either reported, or a Council official noticed that the same spot always had a car in it with a for sale sign in the window. They may write down the contact number each time. If it never changes there is a good chance it's a trader taking advantage. Such practice is one way for those who may be 'unemployed' to top up their benefits.
Using the public highway to carry out a trade is an offence without a licence.
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There's a very new law as well, Cleaner Neighbourhood Act 2005. Specific sanctions for flogging carts at the roadside, haven't got time to look up the Section, try it later for you.
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There's a very new law as well Cleaner Neighbourhood Act 2005. Specific sanctions for flogging carts at the roadside haven't got time to look up the Section try it later for you.
thanks will look forward to it
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On a nearby main road couple of weeks ago a vehicle for sale was lifted by the Police for having no tax. Not exactly difficult 'cos the FS sign said "6 months MoT, No Tax". That'll cost him.
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Nuisance Parking
Section 3 Exposing vehicles for sale on a road
32. Some garages and other businesses which sell cars at times park them for long periods on the road. This can be a nuisance to local residents. Section 3 makes it an offence for a person to park motor vehicles on a road or roads, where the vehicles are parked merely in order to be sold. There must be two or more vehicles within 500 metres of each other for the offence to be committed.
33. The provision is not aimed at individuals selling cars privately, so a person will not be convicted if he can prove that he was not acting for the purposes of a business (see subsection (2)). Subsection (3) sets out the penalties.
34. A 'road' is as defined in section 142 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c.27) as any length of highway or of any other road to which the public has access. Whether a piece of land is a road or not is a matter of fact. The main feature of a road is that the general public has a right to use it as a means of getting from A to B. The definition includes all highways (all the land to which the public has a right to pass along for the purpose of legitimate travelling and includes both the carriageway and footpath) and also access roads through estates that are owned by organisations such as Housing Associations or by the residents who live there. A car park for example would not normally come within the definition of a road as its function is to enable people to leave their vehicles.
See how the onus of proof is on the seller to prove that he wasn't doing in the course of business.
Below is a link to the Act. Which is a surprisingly comprehensive one, spoilt only by the usual vagueness in implementation dates. Even more vague if you happen to live in Wales, where the Welsh Assembly are doing things in their own good time.
www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/en2005/2005en16.htm
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Casually reading the Act over a coffee........never knew that this was in it.
Section 4 Repairing vehicles on a road
36. This section addresses the nuisance caused by people repairing their vehicles on the street. This can take up valuable parking space for long periods, looks unsightly and can be directly damaging to the local environment (for example where oil is spilled or leaked). Section 4 makes it an offence to carry out "restricted works" to vehicles on a road.
37. There are two exceptions. The first is where a person proves he was not repairing the vehicle in the course of a business (subsection (3)(a)). But this is only available where the works did not give "reasonable cause for annoyance" to persons in the vicinity. So even a person carrying out repairs otherwise than for a business can be convicted if the works gave cause for annoyance.
38. The second exception is where the repairs arose from a breakdown or accident and were carried out promptly or were otherwise authorised (subsection (5)).
39. The definitions of 'road' and 'vehicle' are the same as in the previous section (see paragraph 34 above).
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On the main road into, I think, Morecambe, there used to be a house with 3 or 4 cars parked up for sale. It would really bug me if I was a neighbour having to park round them. I think some modern housing developments have clauses that say you cannot run a business from your home.
There is a house round the corner from us where the guy regularly has one car after another for sale - I assumed these people are really traders trying to pass the cars off as a private sale to avoid any comeback.
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Theres an electrician near me always has a car for sale,
a pub landlord with his cars for sale in the carpark,
the usual local chavs with their dog eared mondeos and vectras with the cornflake packet details care of the local "blood" shop sellotaped in the window
All these things can quickly make what was a nice area quickly look a rough area and when the council go round and put stop notices on these vehicles and the roads are devoid of them again then i rejoice................for a week till the situation starts again.
blood shop?......was once in a shop at 9.30 in the morning and a chav came in and bought some white cider 9% abv or something and dirt cheap,anyway it turns out he calls this his blood and needs it every morning,he was quickly followed by all sorts of people doing the same thing.yuk
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"See how the onus of proof is on the seller to prove that he wasn't doing in the course of business."
As a matter of interest, is this unusual?
Or am I so hopelessly out of touch with the legal process that every Act passed these days requires you to prove your innocence, rather than the prosecution to prove your guilt?
Have we already lost "innocent until proven guilty"?
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""Have we already lost "innocent until proven guilty"?
Since when has that mattered any more ?
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I'm pretty sure that people who do this as a way of earning income never transfer the V5 into their own name. That's ok for a trader but definitely not for a private individual pretending to be a trader. It would certainly invalidate their insurance, even if they had any.
If the council were serious about cleansing the roads of these nuisances, that's the route to pursue them down.
I suppose the pub landlord selling cars from his own land is different - more difficult to stop, a real challenge for the biro-suckers at the Town Hall!
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I always wondered where sellers on ebay stand - there seem to be lots of people making money on the side selling cars. Are they ever chased up for tax? Presumably they offer no warranty, yet they are, to all intents and purposes, traders. I am always put off if I see that the seller has sold cars before. While I'm ranting, another thing that bugs me is when I see a car supposedly bought by an enthuisiast on a dedicated car forum turn up on ebay a few weeks later at a much higher price. I don't know why this bugs me, but it does.
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I think HM Inland Revenue is taking an interest, there was a well known Antique Dealer whose been (quite rightly) stung for quite a lot of money after his e-bay "business" got found out.
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