General Chat

Did you see on the news last night that a couple had their 30k caravan stolen. They had not insured it which was a little remiss of them.

It was found up the road with a traveller family who had bought it in a pub for £3oo living in it.

Because it would infringe the human rights of the travellers the police cannot confiscate it but the couple must begin expensive civil proceedings to reclaim it themselves.

It still belongs to the finance company as the couple are still paying for it so I would have thought they would be able to get involved.

The traveller couple must have thought they had struck lucky getting all that for £300.

And what about the owners rights? It seems to be only the bad guys have human rights when in fact half of them aren't even human! Saw they had let their insurance slip as it had gone up in price a lot but were looking around for another deal...An expensive delay?
As for buying it at only £300 I would expect the buyer to know it was dodgy

I can see that the police would be dealing with civil law , which is not their job, were they to interfere.

It would become quite a complicated case at law.

If the coupe stopped paying for it, the finance company would be in a position to repossess and I wondered if they could come to some arrangement with the couple to buy it again at a huge discount.

Anyone else would have been done for receiving stolen goods & had the van confiscated!

Surely they suspected a brand new caravan, fully fitted & likely to be exchanged for cash, in a pub for £300 was stolen?

Of course they did! :-|

They should be made to fork out for a genuine cheap caravan, buy a tent or be offered as a family homeless temporary accommodation like the rest of the population.

Failing that if thats not good enough the rest of their community could offer them money between them to get them a basic caravan

Rant over! :-|

That is how it should be but the repercussions would be enormous

I wonder where they were living before they had their wondrous bit f luck..

Who's to say they did not steal it themselves, perhaps the police should look into it a bit more after all it's worth a lot of money. Ok Ok don't say the police are too busy but...

But they are still required to live within the law.

Unfortunately they are not silly, crafty as a cartload of monkeys, and know how to manipulate the law in their favour, often because they have needed to.

When the New Poor Law was introduced and everybody was afraid of it, they, who belonged to no parish, would utilize it for their own benefit. A night in the casual ward and a cart ride to the next parish next morning. How better to spend winter?
They regarded the unions as a kind of touring holiday company.

The only difficult thing is to get the real names of the people using it.

Then (a) get a court order for possession, bailiff delivers it.

Illegal users ignore summons.. C Court declares for the plaintiff by default, illegal users ignore it.

Apply to High Copurt for enforcement of writ ( under £ 100 )

High Court sheriff takes possession - he can and will use whatever force required.
High Court sheriffs can and will take action against groups attempting to resist and the police are legally obliged not to assist the the sheriff but to prevent the sheriff being obstructed.

Job done.

It is usually a condition of finance that insurance is in force for cars, boats, caravans etc. The owners are at risk of the finance company taking action against them for the outstanding loan whether they keep up the payments or not.

Years ago a colleague's in-laws had their caravan stolen. He saw the van being driven, followed it to the local traveller's site and called the police. They wouldn't even enter the site!

I wonder if the reason that it hasn't been confiscated as stolen property is because the couple have no proof that it is actually their caravan? Caravans don't have registration or VIN numbers like vehicles do. There is a system called KRIS where a number is etched on to all the windows and some people even have it painted on the roof but if this couple had not insured their 'van. possibly they had not paid to have this done.

Don't caravans have a microchip somewhere.

How long before the travellers are off travelling again in their new van. Going to.....who knows where?

If they do ever get it back they will be getting back a trailer in immaculate condition.

Don't think so, Sharron but haven't owned one for some years. Pretty sure my friends' don't. Most newish ones have alarms fitted and all my friends with them also always use a clamp on one of the wheels when they are parked up. Agree with Rollo about the finance companies rules about insurance.

if you bought a stolen car
it would be removed and returned to the rightful owner

so why not a caravan i bet they knew it was stolen
or like already said stole it themselves

I don't think it would removed because it was stolen.

It is more complicated with a car, That would be TWOCing which isn't possible with a caravan because it is not subject to all the regulations that a car is.

There was a case involving Richard Greene (Robin Hood) and a Bentley but I can't remember the details.

but it is TWOC
it was taken without the owners concent :-D

But taking a car is much more complicated, it involves insurance and registration.

I think the police will impound a stolen car which deprives the thief af it's use but there are two small children living in the trailer.

These children must be made a priority above the owners of the trailer, who are actually the finance company.

Couldn´t quite believe what I was reading.
As I understand it, the couple have all the paperwork to prove it´s theirs.
It´s almost as bad as coming back from holiday to find that sqatters have taken over your house & can´t be evicted without a court order.

I was going to say (but Wisechild got there first). The travellers have a scrap of paper as receipt for £300 the original owners have all the paperwork proof, plus numerous photos of the van on all the holidays they had in it. Apparently the travellers took the van all over England and I think to Scotland, before returning to within 10 miles of where the original owners live.

Well I just wonder how long the travellers have had the caravan if they have travelled all over Britain in it.

And why make the headlines now NOT whenit was first stolen.

Travellers don't usually have even a small piece of paper as a reciept as they just slap hands when a deal is done.no paper work involved.
That is the tradition.