I am trying to get some legal advice on a recent situation that happened to my son. I cannot afford to go to a solicitor, as we would be unable to pay the cost. Its a bit of a saga but here is what happened.
My son had a 50cc moped which we bought second hand from a friend less than a year ago. We have very little money and really struggle to make ends meet I work full time and my son has summer work as a scuba diving instructor, the moped enables him to work whenever he can as we live in the campo 30k from the Puerto de Mazarron where we both work.
Recently my car broke down and unfortunately my sons bike broke down on the same day .This was a real trauma for us as´ now we had no transport to enable us to work.
I arranged for my car to be taken to a local garage in Mazarron and then had to rely on the kindness of friends who allowed me to stay with them in the Port so as I could work. My son’s bike was left legally parked in El Pareton waiting for me to make the arrangements to return it home.
My car was in the garage for 10days, as soon as I got the car I drove to El Pareton to discover my son’s bike was missing I assumed stolen. So on Monday morning my son and I went to El Pareton and asked the man who owns the garage if he knew where the bike was as it was parked near to his garage. He gave my son a sticker from the local police saying it had been towed away
We went to Totana Local Police who confirmed it had been towed away, when we asked why he said because they thought it was abandoned. We pointed out that the bike was completely legal the paperwork was in my son’s name it was insured with a current ITV so he was perfectly within his rights to park the bike on a public road. The policeman agreed but still insisted that they thought the bike was abandoned. So we suggested that they could have checked on the computer records which would have shown the bike to be completely legal and not reported stolen, again he agreed but said yes but we thought it was abandoned. Getting nowhere we asked if we could have the bike back to which he replied oh yes but we need you to pay €180 first. My goodness we were astounded what for???? Well for the cost of the grua and storage fees. Once again we insisted that the bike was legal and legally parked and we shouldn’t have to pay anything, to which he replied well if you’re not happy you can take us to court.
So knowing we could not afford to that either as nothing legal is free here, nor could we afford to pay the €180, the other option was to sign to say we didn’t want the bike anymore which my son had no choice but to do. We then asked if we could collect personal items from the bike, the policeman agreed and told us where to go. Well this in itself was a journey but when we eventually found the lock up and only because 2 policeman were outside. My son went in with the police and when he came out he said well I am glad we didn’t pay €180 because the bike was absolutely trashed it had clearly been dragged on to the grua smashing all the faring the steering was broken because my son had left the steering lock on and the seat lock had been forced open. The bike was going to cost 100´s of Euros to put back on the road.
So where does this leave us, well with no transport for my son to get to work and we have lost the cost of the bike because the insurance won’t pay because the police took the bike. As I mentioned we have little money and we have to go without to ensure that our vehicles are roadworthy and legal for our own safety and because it’s the law. I recently had to spend quite a bit on the bike to get the ITV certificate again when we can ill afford it.
However, we as do many others, pay for repairs and necessary things on our vehicles so that the above things should never happen. The bike was legal and that surely gives us the right to park the bike on the road for as long as we want. Ok I understand if a strange vehicle is outside your house for 4 or 5days you may well call the police as the vehicle could be stolen or abandoned. But the police can check to see if these things have happened that’s why they have all our details on the computer. When they discover that the vehicle is completely legal what right do they have to remove it and then charge us for the privilege?
So now my son cannot work unless I take him with me at 8am he doesn’t start work until 10pm so he has 2 hours to kill in the morning then I finish at 5pm and he finishes at 8pm so I have 3hours to wait for him which means we are both out at work for over 13hrs a day as its half an hour drive home afterwards.
If anyone can give any advice it would be very much appreciated
Julie