Have read about similar situations down here in the sunny south west and it turns out that unless they have gone about properly they get closed down. IIRC a licence AND planning is required.
A bloke at my work even got a letter for putting a for sale sign on his own car while it was on the public highway. Apparently he was acting illegally and required a traders licence.
Have a word with planning or trading standards at the council.
Post back!
Regards.
FTF
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You only have to pay business rates if you're using 100% of an area for a business.
I am not sure planning permision does come into it it would depend on the local council I guess. Selling cars in the street is different as you need a pedlers licence for that.
But if the cars are parked in his drive then I am not sure what the issue would be.
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I am sure part of his business involves storing fuel.
Anyone want a fire ?
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A business next door to me stores fuel, the council and fire brigade did not want to know when we questioned it. It seems you can store as much as fuel as you like :(.
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Why not wait until it becomes a problem, the report it?
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All those tyres could explode too - and oil and grease from the sub frames and brake lines could spatter over the neighbors windows as they peep out giving them a shock and causing them to knock the Hyacinth out of the bucket.
"I look up to him cos he wears a hat and has rolled umbrella -We look down on `im cos he has to work for a living and sell cars .
Not on our street and park those lower class white vans with the greasy sub frames and brake lines out of sight.
cough...;-)
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Our next door neightbour runs a small transport company and until last year, they used to do night runs leaving home at about 1-2am in the morning. The vans they store at home did make a racket when started up at this hour and our residential street ( which carries a 40% premium over other parts of the area I live in ) has a driveway full of highcube vans on it, although we do have two other self emplyed tradespeople who also have vans on their driveways.
Thing is though, they are really genuinely nice people ( who now work days ) and they keep the vans clean, so as a neighbourhood is about give and take, you make certain allowances because not everyone is the same.
We have curtain twitchers in our street who had the audacity to quizz me neightbour about where my ex-wife was - Id dearly love to tell them to stuff it where the sun shines not, but in the interests of being part of a community, I smile, laugh at their petty nature and get on with my life. Something others should also consider in this world.
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I hope, that if sky5000 does get her way, and this gentleman loses his business, closely followed by his home, that the new people are chav lottery winners.
Now that would be fun... nice loud music... great parties... maybe even drugs!
some people just cannot live and let live.. If and when it becomes a problem then fine, as has been said, have a word with him, but until then he has to pay the bills some how.
just thinking.. maybe NOW is the time to have a quiet word, politely, just to let him know how you feel?
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If he's not causing any problems, let things be. If he gets busier and the sale cars spill out onto the road, that might be the time to do something.
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Why not just welcome him to the street? He may be able to offer a moral or educational uplift to the area, based on his knowledge of people - you never know.
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if he is running the full monty from home he will be able to sell these cars for less due to less overheads
thing is you have to ask yourself why would you buy a traders car from a house ?why not go down the block and cut his profits out?
where will he do his repair work?what kind of noise will it create
im always for a trader working from home to get established (small time) but to run a large compedium to me is unfair competition on other places paying things like council business rates,business water rates etc
edit.........and i wouldnt want him living next door to me
Edited by bell boy on 24/08/2009 at 14:31
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and i wouldnt want him living next door to me
And this is the crux, and why I tend to agree with the OP... if I'd bought a house in a residential area I would not expect someone to set up as a motor trader a few doors down from me... and its damn all to do with being a snob, its just I expect that where I live it will be residential, if I wanted to live in commercial or mixed areas I would buy there, but I don't, I want a better and safer environment for my family than those areas normally provide, thats not snobishness, its common sense.
I'm sorry but the "live and let live" arguement doesn't wash... if he's genuinely trading and thats his job then there are plenty of suitable locations for him that are no doubt empty at the moment and crying out for someone to rent them... let him go there... and pay appropriate rates, etc for his business and leave the area he's in at the moment for its intended purpose... for people to live, not work, in...
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"live and let live" argument doesn't wash >>
bell boy, b308 and a very few others seem to have grasped the problem.
I wonder what these "live and let live" people think of the person who drives a car without insurance or MOT or road-tax? Or if a trucker sets up in competition with an unlicenced truck? Where do they draw a line, and why? Anarchy rules, eh?
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Theres a big difference between driving a potentially unroadworthy and therefore dangerous car and trading some cars from home. The two things are not related other than in the most superficial sense of letting someone get away with something.
In reality, id far rather my neighbour sold a few cars than drove down my road with an untested car - one is naughty, the other dangerous. Something of a difference.
What did cross my mind was whether or not this was a dealer who had sold off their premises and was liquidating their stock from home. Just an idea.
By all means though, raise his house to the ground if it makes ya feel better, or call the council and see what can be done. In the grand scheme of things its a trival matter, but if your a trival person, you must revert to type and start letter writing :-)
My guess - the OP will do absolutely nothing and was just having a moan. Its the British way afterall.
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one is naughty >>
Stu:
Thanks for stating where you draw the line.
Yes, very very slightly so. As bell boy says, the home trader is avoiding insurance, rates, rents, etc. and doing a bona-fide trader trading from commercial premises out of business. I suppose you won't complain if I should set up a valet business in my drive.
p.s. nor road-tax, or no insurance, or benefit fraud, or shoplifting is OK too as it is just naughty, and dangerous, is it?
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Where is the evidence that this guy is a Home Trader - according to the OP he has a website and VAT numbers etc. Where is the evidence that he's doing anything wrong ? For all the jury in here know he's got all the appropriate permissions in place.
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Bandwagon is rolling, thats why.
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...For all the jury in here know he's got all the appropriate permissions in place....
A lot of industrial estates are a bit sniffy about taking motor trade businesses.
One local authority of which I'm aware refuse to let their units for anything connected with cars or car repair - they are the landlords, so that's their choice.
I've never known a person get planning permission to run a car sales operation from a 100 per cent residential street as described by the OP.
Such a significant change would have to be notified in advance to the neighbours to give them a chance to comment.
I can see the other residents giving such a plan the thumbs-up - not.
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Take a hypothetical case.
His cars catch fire and burn down a few houses.
His cars it turns out are insured but do not cover damage to other premises.other than the traders.
So all those affected have to claim from their own insurers and lose their NCB.
If that happened to me, I would be livid.
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and a hyperthetical question to you.
I live next door to you , my tax has run out , so has my MOT and insurance , so I park my 19** car on MY driveway , and declare it SORN
and it catches fire ? tiz not insured , is it insured because its on my land? , oh yes my daughters car (she doesn,t live at home) was parked there as well , as was her boyfriends , and the rest of the rugby club .
they all popped around to wind sky5000 up!
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Such a significant change would have to be notified in advance to the neighbours to give them a chance to comment. >>
etc. etc. agreed.
I am surprised that Pugugly needs all this spelling out.
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Where is the evidence that this guy is a Home Trader >>
says so in the title to the thread: "Car dealer working from home."
unless you know different?
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All we are saying is that car traders should work from appropriate premises, a purely residential street is not suitable, let the appropraite authorities know, if he's legal then he won't have a problem, if he's trying to sidestep the system and save on his overheads he will be moved on or punished accordingly...
Can't see a problem there, can you?!
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Perhaps if more people worked from home there would be less traffic, fewer hold ups, less polution, a reduction in wasted fuel resources and children might actually get to know their parents. Neighbours might actually begin to interact as communities, get to know and understand each other, maybe even help each other. Perhaps these so revered residential areas would cease to be commuter departure lounges populated by passing strangers.
Maybe it would even create more demand for local businesses serving each other and these new found communities. You know, butchers, bakers, Post Offices etc..
Just a thought........
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sky5000 , as you are sat at home all day watching life go by through the net curtains , why not ask him if he has a job , washing and valeting cars , you could probably get 2 or 3 on your drive?
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Freddy - you sound like a well-balanced guy - chips on both shoulders? :-)
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>why not ask him if he has a job , washing and valeting cars , you could probably get 2 or 3 on your drive?
Slightly different attitude to your post in the Travellers thread, eh?
"lets stop pussy footing around! if I have to comply with the law , why are they excempt!"
If the area is classed as purely residential and not mixed commercial/residential then he's breaking the law and the OP has every right to be peeved. I would be too.
There are plenty of situations where it is acceptable to run a business from designated residential property but I don't think a full-time used car dealer would be one of them without the approval of neighbours.
Kevin...
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A lot of it depends on the mortgage company and any conditions to the original planning of the home. I am very lucky that I am allowed to freely run a business from my parents company with permision of both the mortgage company and council.
A late neighbour used to service cars on the street and we just turned a blind eye to it because it is far easier to put up with a reving engine every sunday than it is to fall out with neighbours.
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Perhaps if more people worked from home there would be less traffic
Depends on the business, HB, it seems like the car trader business increases traffic...
Whereas Rattle's doesn't!
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...Depends on the business, HB, it seems like the car trader business increases traffic...
This is why office-based home businesses are generally permitted and noisy, dirty, smelly, businesses are not.
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Quite right. By up to five cars a day I gather. Must be chaos sometimes.......
;-)
I dunno, I'm just feeling that businesses like this represent the very "green shoots" our economists are desperately trying to encourge as the Genesis of our economic recovery. I worry about our recent sociological trend to compartmentalise our existance with the creation of work, retail and sleeping ghettos. Modern housing developments are virtually deserted during weekdays. People left behind there grow fat and listless due to lack of social stimulation and attempt to ameliorate that by driving to shopping malls to wander aimlessly around cloned versions of anytown.
Integration of our communities needs to be encouraged not resisted. Let's have a variety of economic drivers at the very hearts of our society I say. Those £300k houses will be worth nothing soon if we don't regenerate a local economy around and among them.
We have had one economic wake up call, let's learn from it. We need to grow communities and interdependent social and economic local bonds. As things are, in many locations, people have no sense of belonging or responsibility to their local economy.
I say encourage this guy. Of course if he began to trade in such a way as to be causing any real disruption or detriment to the area then that would naturally have to be dealt with appropriately. That would in turn be much easier to do at a healthy level if everyone knew each other personally rather than only as an impression gained from behind a net curtain.
Long distance commuting, dormitory towns and suburbs, faceless shopping malls, industrial estates....is that how we want to live ?
If so carry on. Chuck him out.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 25/08/2009 at 10:11
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>>raise his house to the ground
?
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>raise (sic) his house to the ground
When my eldest niece split from her boyfriend she moved into a really nice flat in Sheffield.
She soon discovered that a house nearby was being used for 'retail'.
The problem ceased to exist after one of their competitors put petrol thru' the letterbox.
Retail is a tough business nowadays.
Kevin...
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>>It seems you can store as much as fuel as you like.
In England you can't do ANYTHING you LIKE.
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A bloke at my work even got a letter for putting a for sale sign on his own car while it was on the public highway. Apparently he was acting illegally and required a traders licence.>> FTF
If it is/was a Private sale he DOES NOT need a licence. It is his to sell. The ruddy Council can Chuff off. End of.
MD
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theres lots of private (no they arent) cars for sale in my town on the roads,mainly sold by eastern europeans they sit in their cars for hours waiting for an autotrader phone call,the latest wheeze they use to save money is to advertise under a thousand pounds to get the cheapest advert then put something like 1695 in the words below
ive complained to my council and they told me nothing could be done even though as rattle says you needs a peddlars licence which they wont get and an interview with the chief constable and 16 notes passed over the counter
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I guess I'm split on this one. If I had a £300k house I suppose I too would be worried about the neighbourhood going downhill.
On the other hand, if I had a £300k house I might just be counting my blessings that I had a £300k house...
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I think the price of the property is irrellevent.
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As b308 says, the value of the property is irrelevant, and it smacks of politics of envy. At the risk of going off topic:
I guess I'm split on this one. If I had a £300k house .... I might just be counting my blessings that I had a £300k house... >>
In South East England, I think you would be hard pushed to find a house for less than £300k, especially if it had a garage and drive capable of parking more than two cars. The following is the last update that I could find:
" the number of homes in the UK valued at more than £300,000 now stands at 1.5 million - 8 per cent of owner occupied properties. "
60% of these are in the South East, 30% in the South West, and the remaining mostly in Northern cities such as Birmingham and Manchester.
I can assure you that the millions of people who have to pay these high prices to own their home in the South do not think it is a "blessing" when they buy. Their children may do so when they inherit the property, though.
Edited by jbif on 25/08/2009 at 10:04
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As someone who is currently looking for a house I would say its very true of Sussex where Im from, but in Northants, if you know where to look, you can get say a 3-bed detached house with garage, in a very nice area, for less than £140k. Infact Im spoilt for choice.
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It might just resolve itself if the trader gets his business going again, via this residentially-based interlude, by acquiring new proper commercial premises - OTOH, it might not.
Currently, I'd imagine, he's able to undercut similarly sized local dealers by avoiding many of the standard business costs associated with his type of work - and btw, probably not paying business rates to the local council. It's also as well to understand, that once a business is 'under the radar', many of the checks, balances & inspections do not take place - so bad, or even dangerous practices can creep in putting the trader, employees or even neighbours at risk or disadvantage.
I wouldn't be put in the false dilemna posed by some posters here, that you're somehow being a busybody & snob & that you should 'live & let live'; some people, unfortunately will always take advantage & 'live' at the expense (or amenity) of others - that's why we have rules, regulations & laws.
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So how does this work from the car buyers perspective ?
A few years back I went to buy a car from a trader - saw the car in a large unit on an industrial estate - said I'd be back with SWMBO for a test drive. This got arranged from his home address (though I didn't know that until we arrived). His neighbours were clearly unsettled by this activity.
I did buy the car - it was a great price, all paperwork correct, not a 'private' sale and no problems at all.
I did wonder why he chose this method of doing business - there were at least 2 other customers at his home that day.
I can also understand why his neighbours were unhappy - but I wasn't going to walk away from a good deal on that basis.
If a neighbour of mine were trading cars (motorbikes might be worse :-) ), it would probably annoy me - but I don't know if I'd be so annoyed as to lodge an official complaint againts his/her business.
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The whole point is that it's a home, not business premises, isn't it?
There are some things you can do from home without disrupting your neighbours or even anyone knowing: stuff on a computer or word processor, for instance, or a bit of joinery in the garage or keeping your gear there if you're a painter and decorator.
But when you start moving cars to and fro you start changing the nature of the street and, personally, I think that's not on. Some businesses need business premises and car dealing is one of them.
Otherwise where do you draw the line? When a bloke starts sorting scrap and old concrete on his drive?
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>>>"people who have to pay these high prices to own their home in the South do not think it is a "blessing" when they buy. Their children may do so when they inherit the property, though."
Or maybe the guy in Sky's street is fortunate to already be the child of parents who had property in the district?
;-)
If he's fallen on hard times, he could sell his house and use the money to pay for some appropriate premises, and then live in a rented one-bedroom flat. Everybody's happy then.
;-)
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See attached guide to working from home. This is from Wigan Council but all councils will work to similar guidelines. The business described but the OP is clearly in breach of at least condition VI 3,4,5 & 6 and as such is clearly in breach of planning law and would need to seek a change of use from his local council. The council will tell you if such a change of use has been granted
Since this is the law I fail to see why expecting the law to be obeyed should provoke such hostile view from some posters. If the law does not decide what is allowed in a residential street who does?
www.wigan.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/097E9152-B906-46F1-B...f
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