Chaucer recoverd my car to Copart and I want it back!

[caroleuk]

Hi, Sorry but this will be another of those long threads, and it is also very complicated so please stay with me.

 

My partner ownsa Rolls Royce silver shadow II insured on a classic policy with Chaucer through a broker called Carole Nash.

 

By way of trying to keep this as short as possible I will skip some of the details as they are complicated,

however if you want more information I will post this tale of woe in full.

 

At some time at the end of September beginning of November last year we took her car to a trusted mechanic who we had know for some 40 years,

he had worked on my partners cars over a period of time spanning more than 20 years as well as my own car,

he had always been slow but we accepted that because whenever he had done work for us it was always done to a very high standard.

 

since giving it to him for repairs to a leaking steering rack he also did a service for us, took it for an MOT and replaced two sills,

 

 

As he was going to have the car for some time, as spares are always difficult to get and we knew that in his words

“he was up to his eyes in work”

 

 

We also asked him if he had inside secure storage for our car, and he said we could rent the garage next door to his workshop so we agreed and waited.

 

 

I think it was in February that he called to tell us the sills were done and did we want them black?

We told him that it had to be body colour and that we had some paint left over from a re spray the car had a few years ago.

 

 

He came to pick it up but talked us into a full re spray as done by his friend who’s work we had seen before,

he would do a much better job and as he was thinking of going self employed he would do it at a parts only price for us.

 

Some time later after many phone calls and visits to our mechanic and him to us we were finally given a date for the return of our car, being the 23rd May.

 

Over all this time we had paid him for work done totalling around £1500.

 

On the 22nd of may we got a phone call from the mechanics daughter telling us that the car had been vandalised back in December

and the he had done none of the work to the car and also that the car was in another rented workshop of his in Hunsdon About 10 miles from were we thought it was?

 

We went to Hunsdon and were told that the car had been outside and that it was one of our mechanics ex employees that had vandalised it,

but also that we could not see the car because he thinks the owner who rents out the units had put it inside one of his storage units.

 

 

More phone calls and running around and we found that the car had been moved to another site owned by this man in Potters bar?

 

 

We found the car and were told that

A: we were lucky because someone was due to come and buy the car and

B; that he had been told not to release it to us until we paid £200.

 

We passed all this to Chaucer our insurers for the past two years and they said not to pay him anything (as if I was going to!)

and that they had sent a recovery vehicle to pick it up,

 

 

we waited for hours with the key’s but no truck arrived and we had to go home,

the next day I called Chaucer and asked why my car had not been picked up and they said it was due to be picked up tomorrow!

 

Now the problems really start.

 

 

My partner is having a breakdown over all this as she can’t handle the stress and this car was her whole world

having taken an extraordinary effort on her part to raise the money to buy her dream car.

 

The insurance company have passed our claim to an insurance investigator and our car we have now been told is with Copart, a salvage auction seller!

 

WE have been told first that they have sent a salvage assessor to see the car and now that it was an assessor fro a company called Sydney Hooper?

But as yet nothing has been concluded.

 

I’m now very worried that my car has been sent to Copart for sale as salvage and I want to pick it up from there and take it and put it in my garage,

and if any assessors want to see it they can come to me and asses it.

 

We have told Chaucer right from the start we do not want the vehicle scrapped, we want it back so we can restore it again, so I have no idea what is going on?

 

Can I insist that I take the car to my own safe storage?

[dacouc]

Basically yes you can, however it will be your cost to transport it from the salvage yard to your property

[caroleuk]

Thank you dacouc

I think I knew I could do that but needed reassuring,

you see my partner always said she would get a silver shadow since she first saw one when she was about 7 years old,

 

 

about 5 years before I met her she had been collecting old drinks cans, bit's of copper wire,

she always carried a pair of wire cutters in her pocket and when ever she saw an old appliance outside someone's house

she would knock and ask if she could have the plug and wire.

 

 

When I first went to her flat it was full of old wire, cans and other bit's of scrap metal she had collected.

 

She had been looking for a car for a few years and was always just short of what she needed.

Then we saw one on ebay and rang the seller about it,

she was on the phone to him for about and hour and a half!

 

 

I was so sure this was THE car we flew to Newcastle to look at it,

yet still she was about £1000 short but I paid that and she finally had her dream car.

 

 

Now it is a nightmare!

[dacouc]

This is the relevant part from the Ombudsman

 

"16. salvage of the "written-off" vehicle and contents

 

When a vehicle is “written off”, the insurer becomes the owner of the salvage once the consumer accepts payment of the full market value. If the consumer asks to keep the salvage, the insurer is entitled to deduct what it would have been able to sell the salvage for – though this is usually not very much.

 

Consumers sometimes complain that the insurer (or its agent) disposed of the salvage before paying the full market-value. At this stage, the vehicle still belongs to the consumer, so we look to see if the insurer asked the consumer’s to the settlement of the claim – even if the insurer says it was only acting in the public interest by keeping a badly-damaged vehicle off the road.

 

If we find the insurer disposed of the vehicle without the consumer’s consent and there were items belonging to the consumer inside, we are likely to tell the insurer to pay the cost of replacing these – usually on a like-for-like (rather than a new-for-old) basis.

 

If we think that the policyholder was unfairly deprived of the salvage, we may tell the insurer to pay compensation for any financial loss or distress and inconvenience we think the consumer has experienced.

 

"Written-off" vehicles are categorised – according to the severity of the damage – under a voluntary code agreed between the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and salvage dealers (ABI Code of Practice for the Disposal of Motor Vehicle Salvage):

 

category A vehicles are to be kept off the road and crushed

category B vehicles are also to be kept off the road, but could be broken up for spare parts.

category C vehicles are repairable, but uneconomical to repair.

category D vehicles are repairable economically, but written off for some other reason.

Since 7 April 2003 all category A, B and C vehicles notified to DVLA must pass a Vehicle Identity Check before they can be returned to the road. This is to confirm that the vehicle is the original registered one and not stolen – its roadworthiness or repairs are not looked at. (See The Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2002.)"

 

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

[BankFodder]

If the car is really important to you then I think that things are quite serious and are getting out of control.

 

Please monitor this thread for a fuller response later but in the meantime google for the tort of conversion and also get ready to start writing some serious letters to your insurer as a matter of urgency.

Read our customer services guide

[BankFodder]

Also, you will need to write to the auctioneer and put them on notice that the car is your property and if they sell it, they will have to account for it to you.

 

Why did you call in the insurer? Was it on the basis of theft? or damage? - for what reason have you invoked the insurance cover?

[unclebulgaria67]

I suspect that the car is NOT in the process of being sold. It has been recovered waiting further instruction. You just have to get the car back and then to negotiate a sum to help with the repairs. What is Carole Nash doing to help ? They are your Brokers, so are there to help, if you ask.

 

No doubt the Police are involved regarding the damage to the car and you should also look into what civil action you can take against the garage owner. They lied to you and covered up damage being done to the car.

[Mwynci]

The car is always yours, until you say otherwise, argue the toss that when they arranged "safe storage" they should have given the option of delivering that back to your house, I don't see why you should pay redelivery of your own vehicle. Different if it was going to a garage, but they would have always known it was going to Copart.

 

If that doesn't work, use the Lloyd's compaint route (Chaucer are a Lloyd's syndicate), I can let you know more if needed, I just don't want to fill the board up too much right now.

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this.

 

The car can become the property of the insurer by subrogation. This means that if they cover the losses to an extent where they are paying more than the value of the car, they may consider that the car is written off and that they are then entitled to keep the wreck for salvage.

 

The big problem here is that the insurance may go ahead and do it without referring to you. The auctioneers may well have their eye on it already because they will realise that it has collectors value which may be considerably more than the book value.

 

Your own personal value for it as a special item which you have desired and cared for over a period of time may be even more than the collector value. This is why people normally deal with these things on the basis of an agreed value with insurer. It doesn't sound to me as if you have agreed value with your insurer at the time that you took out the policy.

 

I'm afraid that these things are full of little tricks. You may well find that the auctioneer has already flag it up to some restorer who knows that they will be able to bring it up to a decent condition quite quickly and they make a killing on the price.

 

You need to stop this process as quickly as possible because once it is sold at auction, you will have almost 0 chance of getting it back and getting any redress against the auctioneer or against the insurer will be extremely difficult because they are far more powerful and knowledgeable than you.

 

You will need to act quickly to protect yourself and one of the first things you should do is that you should write to the auctioneer, tell them that they have the car without authority – whatever the insurers say. Tell them also that the car is part of a criminal investigation and that they must not dispose of it and that if they do, they will be liable for far more than the money they receive through auction.

You must tell the auctioneer that you are proposing to sue them and the insurer in the tort of conversion if you do not receive written confirmation that the whole matter is on hold subject to investigation.

 

You must write to the insurer and tell them that you dispute the fact that it is written off and you must tell them that the book value does not represent the true value of the car as a collection item or of its particular value to you.

 

Tell your insurer also that if they deal with the car at all without your authority that you will be selling them in the tort of conversion and also you will be seeing them under ICOBS for treating you unfairly.

 

You must go to the police immediately and you must report the whole thing. There clearly are the offences of obtaining by deception here – in respect of the money that you paid for the repairs. Get a crime reference number and supply the crime reference number to the insurer and the auctioneer.

 

You need to come back here onto this forum and tell us much more detail please – in particular the questions I asked you as to what was the damage or what other reason was there for the insurance company taking charge of the vehicle.

 

If you deal with anyone on the telephone, you must – absolutely must – implement the advice that we give in our customer services guide.

 

The insurance company want to get shot of this problem. The auctioneer wants to make a killing on the price. The auctioneer may well have already identified some dealer who will also want to make a killing you will be the victim. This is the time when telephone calls will be made or received and all sorts of things will be said and you have to gain evidence of it all.

[unclebulgaria67]

See the post from Dacouc above. I doubt a good auctioneer would sell the car without the registration document, MOT, service history etc. But I have read of Insurers disposing of cars when they should have waited, so don't take any chances.

 

So you have to register complaints as suggested to make sure you get the car back.

[caroleuk]

Thank you to all of you who have replied, I have informed everyone (Chaucer, Copart and Carole Nash that I want my car back regardless of the outcome of my claim. on that subject I should tell you that my claim is being dealt with by an insurance investigation company called brownsword? I think it may be due to the MOT.

We have been insured by the same company for two years but part of the work that was supposed to have been done was a new MOT the last one ran out in early January, however the damage (which is what we are claiming for) Was caused in December so I assume that claim will be processed under the old insurance. We were also getting the car restored further so as to get a new independent valuation (which is what we told our broker) but I believe the old one was still valid on the old policy.

 

 

This is getting so complicated and my partner is really not very well over it all, I just wish we had not moved to Norfolk now as there is NO mental health support, she has been referred but they say it could take at least another 8 weeks before she even get onto the waiting list to get some help, but that's besides the point.

 

 

Thank you again the help and support we have had so far has been very encouraging.

[BankFodder]

First of all, have you been receiving the automatic alerts about new posts from this forum? I know that you have a Hotmail address and our email alerts often go to Hotmail spam folders.

 

Please check your spam folder if you have not be receiving our email alerts. I know that you have received a direct email message from one of our site team because we were worried that you didn't realise that we were responding to this thread.

 

If you find our emails in your Hotmail spam folder then you should white list us or take some other action to make sure that ConsumerActionGroup emails are cleared to go into your ordinary inbox.

 

Believe me, you had better take control of this because although you think that simply by telling the insurance company or telling the auctioneer that the car is not be sold, it won't be as easy as that unless they feel threatened. The auctioneer will not want to pay attention to what you say because you are not the client. They will consider that as the insurance company has given them the car, that it is theirs to sell.

 

You will have to be very thorough about communicating with everybody in a very assertive way and you will have to cover all your bases which means you have to write, copy everybody in, and make sure that they all understand very clearly the situation and what will happen if they ignore your warnings.

 

You must contact the police. You must get a crime reference number. You must give the crime reference number to the insurance company and also to the auctioneer.

 

Find out if the auctioneer is a member of some professional auctioneering organisation – they probably are. Write a letter to that organisation and tell them that you are very worried because the auction house has your collectors car and they are preparing to sell it and that you believe that they will ignore your instructions not to. Make sure that a copy of that letter goes to the auctioneer and also to the insurance.

 

You're quite right, it is getting very complicated – but that is because you have allowed it to get out of control. Start taking control by writing the letters I have said and making the reports that I have suggested. This is the only way that you can get everybody worried and paying attention to you.

 

If the auctioneer feels that they are about to get the trouble and end up being sued, then they will put a hold on the auction.

 

Do not accept anybody's assurances just on the telephone. You want it in writing. Everything in writing.

 

Frankly I would also contact the police that the car has been stolen and that you know where it is. I would do this in writing and I would send a copy of the letter to the auctioneer and also to the insurer.

 

The objective here is to stir it up as much as possible in every direction

[caroleuk]

Thank you I have spoken to people because of the urgency involved but I have also told the that I will be putting this in writing to them, I have just finished typing my letter and as you suggest I have also cc,d it to them all I also will be sending the recorded delivery, as for the police they are fully aware.

 

 

I did wonder how I would get notifications of replies but I have found them in my Hotmail and it's now very easy to get to this thread, the only problem I have is that I can only do things connected with the car if my partner is in good spirit or out of the room, on that point yes the letters are from her and not me and she has signed them.

[BankFodder]

You have spoken to the people – but presumably this was on the telephone – and you have got no evidence of your call because you haven't read and followed our customer services guide?

 

You say that the police are aware – but does this mean that you have made a proper report and that you have a crime reference number? What is it simply mean that you have told them and they have said yes okay we understand?

[caroleuk]

No, the police have given us a crime number they have also taken a statement from my partner, I have also sent what was basically my phone conversation ie I do not allow them to dispose of my vehicle under any circumstances and that if my vehicle if in any way subjected to further damage of disposed of in any way without my expressed permission in writing I will peruse the matter further with the courts.

I have also arranged to go to Copart tomorrow to take photos and to inspect my vehicle.

[BankFodder]

Very good.

What is it that stops you removing the car from the auctioneer straightaway? Personally I would not feel comfortable until I headed back in my own possession.

[caroleuk]

to be honest we are trying to find a suitable place to put it so that we can repair it at the moment, as soon as I get a response from a contact it will be gone, we have a garage should the worst come to the worst but it would be impossible to work on it there due to the size of the car (we have 1/2" to spare when the car is in)

[BankFodder]

Well I would get it back into your possession if I were you – and deal with the logistics of getting it repaired afterwards.

 

While it is with the auctioneer – or anything to do with the insurer, then it is not fully in your control.

 

Then if you want to start making a claim against insurer, we are happy to help you

[caroleuk]

Thank you that's taken on board.

[never shay die]

The advice given is pretty heavy going, but I believe it should be very simple.

 

At the moment the car is simply sat in storage at Copart, who are an insurer approved salvage agent. It's not listed for auction (or certainly shouldn't be!) and Copart are just looking after the car whilst waiting for instructions from Chaucer. Chaucer won't (or shouldn't) authorise disposal of the vehicle without your permission.

 

The vehicle is your property. If and when Chaucer pay you out, the vehicle will become their property and they can do what they want with it. However you ALWAYS have the option to have the vehicle back and receive a reduced settlement from Chaucer instead.

 

Insurance companies don't always like vehicles to be returned to customers once they have gone to a salvage agent. The reason for this is that some customers complain that the car has been returned in a worse condition than when it was recovered. Obviously some of these complaints are justified and some are just 'trying it on', but it's a headache for the insurer to deal with. Once a car goes to their salvage agent the insurer would rather it stay there.

 

If you tell Chaucer that you want the car back, and are insistent, they will have to return it to you. They simply cannot refuse. If you have gone to the extra precautions of informing Copart then that's OK but it shouldn't really be necessary.

 

If the car has already been disposed or listed for auction without your permission then that's a different issue, but that does not appear to be the case.

 

Call Chaucer, be insistent and tell them you want the vehicle back. They may charge you for the re-delivery or you can arrange your own. It really should be that simple and the FOS Guidelines further up the thread make it perfectly clear.

 

If Chaucer have refused to return the vehicle to you when you have spoken to them, what reasons have they given?

 

Obviously I can't comment on how the claim itself will pan out or whether you will be paid out, but that wasn't really your query!

[Mwynci]

The advice given is pretty heavy going, but I believe it should be very simple.

 

Yep, it is.

[caroleuk]

Thanks' never say die, I have actually been to copart today to look at my car and Chaucer have said they will deliver it back to me FOC once the claim is sorted

[BankFodder]

That's good news.

People may think that the advice here is heavy going, but nevertheless, the mistrust here is borne out of years of experience on this forum.

If they haven't given that to you in writing then I suggest that you write to them and confirm in detail what they have promise to you. Ask for a written confirmation.

Frankly I can't understand why they should withhold the car from you pending the outcome of the claim. Have they said why? Have they told Copart? Have you asked Copart of they now this?

[never shay die]

That's good news.

People may think that the advice here is heavy going, but nevertheless, the mistrust here is borne out of years of experience on this forum.

If they haven't given that to you in writing then I suggest that you write to them and confirm in detail what they have promise to you. Ask for a written confirmation.

Frankly I can't understand why they should withhold the car from you pending the outcome of the claim. Have they said why? Have they told Copart? Have you asked Copart of they now this?

 

I didn't mean it in a disparaging way BF; it's just I have 15 years and counting working in motor insurance so I probably looked at the OP a little differently.

 

I completely agree with the above though; obtain written confirmation. I too do not understand why they have said they will wait until the claim has been settled. Providing the police have finished with the car (I presume they have, or Copart wouldn't have it in the first place) and presuming Chaucer have already had the car inspected, there's no reason to wait. It's your car, you can have it back when you want!

[unclebulgaria67]

The repairs on a vandalised Rolls Royce may be difficult to estimate as some of the work requires hand finishing by craftsman, plus parts may be difficult and/or expensive to source. Perhaps they wanted some control of the situation to make sure the exact work needed and costings could be obtained. Once it is out of the storers facility, they might fear that quite a lot of extra work will be found and they then have to mess around, possibly having more engineers inspections.

 

This claim will get messy anyway, because there could be legal claims against the garage, who had the car for months in different places, before they said anything about it being damaged.