How To Remove Abandoned Car from Private Land
Guide 2025

Abandoned Vehicle Removal Overview

Prior to 2012 dealing with abandoned vehicles or nuisance parking issues on private land was relatively easy. Then in 2012 The Protection of Freedoms Act of 2012 was introduced. This piece of legislation banned the towing away for money and the clamping of vehicles for parking offences. It did get rid of the cowboy clampers but created a few issues when dealing with genuine abandoned vehicles.

The duties were mainly passed to the local authorities to deal with. However they very rarely act on private land and certainly do not have a budget for doing so.

There is now only one way other than contacting the local authority to deal with this issue but the vehicle must be conformed as abandoned using a tight set legal procedure using Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977.

Quality Bailiffs provides a service to deal with these requests as your agent, though we do not provide any legal advice about the service. You should seek legal advice if you are unsure about instructing us. Quality Bailiffs has over 20 years of experience in dealing with matters under Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977.

We are able to access the DVLA, and HPI service, and check if there any outstanding warrants on our systems for those vehicles.

What is an abandoned vehicle?

There is no legal definition of ‘abandoned’ and this guide does not seek to create one.

It is a fact that Local authority officers have the freedom to use their discretion when making decisions on abandonment, therefore landowners if making an informed decision should have the same.

That said however, the following issues are generally common to abandoned vehicles and one or a combination of the following could assist a landowner in deciding on abandonment.

• Untaxed, with
• No current vehicle keeper on the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) record
• Stationary for a significant amount of time
• Significantly damaged, run down or unroadworthy
• Burned out
• Lacking one or more of its number plates
• Containing waste
• Of very little value

What do you do with this vehicle?

It is quite likely this vehicle is unwanted or broken and that the vehicle has been ‘abandoned’. In which case if you are certain, you may be able to dispose of it immediately or certainly quickly.

However, the owners of this vehicle may well be denying any such intention and instead use a conditional fee lawyer to sue for the value of this vehicle. If the owner did not mean to abandon the vehicle and simply left it there for an extended period, you may have become in law what is known as ‘involuntary bailee’. This places a duty on you the landowner to take reasonable care of this property and keep it safe until it is returned to the owner or disposed of legitimately.

Disposal

If the vehicle fits Classic examples of an abandoned vehicle as detailed above several of our clients have taken a view on this matter and adopted a strategy.

This view or strategy is that if a car fits their criteria for an abandoned vehicle, they simply have an abandonment notice served by attaching it to the vehicle.  If this vehicle is not claimed, we have gone through our entire procedure as below, then they have it removed to be scrapped. If the vehicle is worth very little then the risk of any litigation is extremely minor especially when costs of the damages, torts and storage are added to the client’s counter claim are considered.

Quality Bailiffs acting as your agent would normally do the following for a fixed fee based upon your instruction.

1. Serve an abandoned notice on the vehicle and photograph this
2. Take some photographs of the vehicles condition to stop any allegation of damage being done.
3. Carry out some basic checks:
   1. Run through our warrant database for outstanding warrants.
   2. check if currently taxed.
   3. check if currently insured.
   4. conduct an HPI check to see if wanted by a finance company, stolen and gain a value.
   5. conduct an electronic DVLA search which is usually back within 3 working days. If the check yields no or inconclusive results, then a manual application would be made to the DVLA which sometimes yields better results but takes a little longer.

The bailiff would then upload the information onto their system to keep a permanent record, inform the police to get a reference number, and record the actions.

If the vehicle is not moved within the time frame, we would then arrange within 7 days for a new torts notice informing the last known keeper that the vehicle is going to be disposed of to be drawn up and personally hand delivered to the last known keepers address as per the DVLA check.

After the expiry of that notice, we would again liaise with you the landowner to confirm that you want the vehicle to be sold at auction (if it is worth selling) or to be scrapped or disposed of in some other way. The cost of disposal we can only ascertain after visiting and serving notice. This would be agreed with you before proceeding.

To read more about the service please visit our Abandoned Vehicle Removal Service page.

Or we can be instructed on the Abandoned Vehicle form here.

We can help

If you want to know more about How to Remove Abandoned Vehicles on Private Land please telephone our office and speak to us.

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