Photo: abandoned car in the yard (avtosos.kiev.ua) Author: Konstantin Shirokun
From time to time, the authorities of one city or another declare a fight against abandoned cars: they say that old and immobile cars should make room for young, active ones. But this situation has another side.
Read about how to legally remove an unwanted car from your yard in the RBC-Ukraine article.
The picture is not exactly common, but it is quite familiar: someone's old car sits in the yard and doesn't go anywhere, while there are cars that are used every day, but they have no place here, next to the owner's house.
What is an abandoned car
Of course, living in a legal European state, even about an unaesthetic and seemingly useless object we should only talk about it from the point of view of the law. Which reminds us that every car has a legal owner who is free to dispose of his property at his own discretion. But there is another position – citizens who live nearby and lay claim to a parking space or simply want to have something more aesthetically pleasing before their eyes than a rusty, moss-covered sedan with flat tires.
Abandoned car: what to do?
Civil law lawyers distinguish several types of such machines:
The car is parked in violation of traffic rules . Everything is simple here: you can call the police and the car should be taken to the impound lot. It is not a fact that this will happen on the same day and in the same week, because the police will understand the futility of such a towing (for the car it is a one-way ticket), but you will have to be persistent.
The car is parked without violations, the owner is unknown. The owner's name can be found out through the Service Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by writing an official request (paid service). And knowing the owner's data, you can search for him to start negotiations to free up the space.
The car is parked without violations, the owner cannot be found. The most difficult case, but there is a solution. For such a situation, there is a procedure for recognizing the car as no one's property, followed by recognizing it as a find of a certain citizen – for example, one of the concerned neighbors. Consequently, the found car must be taken to the police for storage, and if the owner does not appear, in six months it can be sold – perhaps to a scrap metal collection point.
Please note that as long as the car has an owner (and by default it is assumed that it does), you cannot take it from the parking place, because this is classified as theft. For the same reason, utility workers and even the police cannot take away an abandoned car.
Negotiations are the best option
It's good when the owner of an abandoned car is known. Try to find out first why his car ended up in such a state. Most likely, the reason is financial: the car broke down a long time ago, and the owner does not have the funds for large-scale repairs. But the owner does not want to part with his car, even if it de facto became real estate: there are still people who value such concepts as nostalgia and memories of the past.
However, even if the owner does not feel sorry for the car, he may not have the money to take it to the dump. In this case, interested neighbors can agree with the owner to take the car to the scrap yard. The money received from the scrap yard (about 200 – 300 dollars) will have to be given partly to the tow truck driver and partly to the owner. The paperwork is not complicated here – the car sent for recycling does not need to be presented to the Service Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it is deregistered free of charge.
In brief
Be that as it may, the easiest way to remove an old and non-functioning car from the yard is to reach an agreement with its owner. Yes, in some cases it will not be easy, because people are different, including, as they say, non-negotiable. To help concerned neighbors, you will have to involve current legislation and authorities. In particular, a local council deputy elected from a given area of the city can often be an effective assistant.
In preparing the article, materials from the State Investigative Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Civil Code of Ukraine were used.
Let us recall that RBC-Ukraine recently reported what is better for a car: a canopy, a garage or a parking lot.