A homeowner has described his year from hell after being stuck with a stranger's car on his driveway for months.
The Daily Mirror reports Omar Badran thought he was initially doing the stranger a simple favour when he was approached at his Plymouth home in December 2021 and asked to lend out the space.
As the resident does not drive himself, he agreed – only for his "foolish generosity" to backfire. When contacted by Omar, the owner reportedly refused to collect the vehicle and made a number of excuses, leaving Mr Badran to sort out the mess himself and causing months of misery.
He spoke of his relief as the bulky Mercedes people carrier was finally moved this week after blocking his driveway for eight months.
"I just want to move on with my life now," he told Plymouth Live.
“This entire thing has made me really miserable and so many people have told me I’m stupid for having allowed him to park on my driveway but I was just trying to do a nice thing.”
Omar struggled to get the car removed from his property, and after seeking legal advice he was stunned to find there was no clear answer at first.
Laws around removing other people's property from your land or home remain a grey area, and authorities may not be obliged to act. Under the Torts Act however, Omar found a way to deal with the frustrating situation.
“I was shocked by my initial search," he said. "It’s legally a grey area and you might not be able to get the council, police or the DVLA to do anything about it, even though the vehicle is uninsured, isn’t taxed and has no MOT.
“I phoned up all these places and they said they couldn’t do anything.”
He added: “I found that under the Torts Act there is a way to deal with it. It took me several weeks and a lot of stress, I thought I was going to be stuck with a really bad situation that would involve thousands of pounds spent in a civil court.”
Using this, Omar placed a cardboard sign in the car's windscreen writing that it would be disposed of within seven days unless the owner had a change of heart and came back to collect it.
It's since been taken to a scrapyard.
“The car was removed by the scrap guy who took it away," Omar said. "It didn’t cost me anything else other than the legal fees for the legal advice."
While parking on other people's property is trespassing in the UK, police are not obliged to deal with it as it is a civil matter and not a criminal offence.
Even more frustrating, victims who then clamp the vehicle or try to block it in could actually be committing a criminal offence and be prosecuted.
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