A mum threw herself across her camper van in a last gasp bid to stop the vehicle from being towed away. Loredana Luisi was left stunned when she saw her rented vehicle being taken away after a parking dispute with her neighbour, reports the Mirror.
The mother first received a note regarding her leased Knaus Boxster 540 van on June 17 telling her to contact HMS Property Management Services, which which oversees the building where she lives. The note told her to contact the firm by July 1 "to avoid further action being taken".
Loredana said she visited the HMS offices on June 20 and was told parking the van in the car park was not allowed as they considered it a commercial vehicle. However, she disagreed stating it wasn't used for commercial purposes as she mainly used it to drop her 10-year-old son, Oscar, off at school.
A 28-day removal notice was subsequently put on the camper van on July 1, on the grounds it was untaxed and abandoned. The notice included a letter signed by her neighbour Anne Kennedy, who is registered as a director of the firm that manages the property, addressed to National Parking Control.
Their website allows owners or managers of private land to download a 28-day Tort Notice on the basis a vehicle parked on private land is abandoned. Once this period has run, if the vehicle is still there, a removal can be ordered through NPC.
Loredana responded to the removal notice, refuting the reasoning and assumed that was the end of the matter. However, on September 10, neighbours got in touch with Loredana to alert her to the campervan being uplifted.
She then rushed down to the car park to try and stop the truck drivers from towing the camper van. Loredana said: "I went out there in pyjamas and asked these people 'who are you and what is the name of your company? Can you show me some documents? Why are you taking my camper van?'
"They didn’t care and acted as if I wasn’t speaking to them. They continued taking the van into the air and putting it onto this big truck. I told them 'please stop it. I will call the police, you are stealing my van.'
"Nothing. They didn’t care. The only thing I was able to do was put my body in front of the truck to stop them moving.
"I told them 'if you want to steal my camper van you will also have to kill me because I will not move from the front of the truck until the police arrive'."
The mother was then left befuddled when officers arrived and said there was nothing they could do to assist her as it was a civil matter. An anonymous neighbour say they were also stunned by the situation as the vehicle was not abandoned.
They said: “We are just staggered, to say jaw on the floor...it's extraordinary. I am just so horrified.
"I can’t actually believe it happened. It definitely wasn’t abandoned because she was driving it every day.”
A spokesman for UK TES- the firm hired to remove the van- claimed the vehicle was "legally removed after a 28 day Tort was applied and spent". They said: "After the 28 days the owner does not own the vehicle any longer and the housing association/management are liable for any legal action that may take place..
"Our service is free we do not charge for the removal of vehicles that are abandoned on private land and it's free for housing associations."
A spokesperson for Hampshire Police said: "We were called at 2.49pm on 10 September by a member of the public reporting a person at risk of breaching the peace in relation to a vehicle being removed from Green Lane in Hamble-le-Rice.
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