If your vehicle is impound by police it can be a difficult race against time to get it back. Here Richard Freeman looks at the trials and tribulations experienced by one motorist.

If your vehicle is impounded by police it can be a difficult race against time to get it back. Here our road traffic law expert, Richard Freeman, explains the trials and tribulations experienced by one of his clients.

Many motorists who have had their car seized by the police have contacted me in a blind panic because they've been unable to remove their car from a police pound. The pound charges a daily storage fee of around £20, and will crush the vehicle if it's not removed within a certain time, no matter if the car is worth £500 or £50000.

The police will routinely seize a vehicle where there has been an insurance issue or a problem with a motorist's driving licence and then take it to the pound. The pound will not release the vehicle to the owner unless it is insured.

The problem is that most insurers will exclude insurance cover to remove a vehicle from a pound. If the motorist has a problem with their licence it can be a race against time to resolve the issue before their car meets its untimely demise in the crusher. Sometimes the only solution is for the motorist to transfer ownership of the vehicle to another person who can then insure the vehicle in their name. This of course can be a costly exercise and often impossible to organise before the car is crushed.

This can be particularly unfair to the motorist who is a victim of an error by their insurance company or by the DVLA, who have wrongly revoked a motorist's licence. A client we acted for was stopped by the police as a result of a random check into his driving documents. The police checked his licence and his insurance and advised him that there were problems with both. They seized his vehicle and removed it to the police pound where they said he could pick it up. Until such time as he could resolve matters with his driving licence he wasn't able to take the car away. He was advised by the pound that the daily cost was £20, and if he couldn't make the necessary arrangements by the following week his vehicle would be crushed. It was worth just under £10,000.

He tried to arrange for another person to be insured under his existing policy but was advised that the insurance company would not insure that person to take the vehicle from the pound. He tried to hire a pick up and a transporter but neither were viable options. The only way he could remove the vehicle was to transfer title to it via the registration document to his friend who then had to insure it at a cost of hundreds of pounds. This is a salutary lesson to check your driving documents, including any correspondence by email, text and post, to ensure that your driving licence and car insurance are both up to scratch.

Click HERE if you wish to view the Article on the GlasgowLive.co.uk website.

All of Scotland Covered:
Including: Glasgow Edinburgh Aberdeen Dundee Dumfries Paisley East Kilbride Perth Livingston Giffnock Cumbernauld Hamilton Kirkcaldy Dunfermline Ayr Kinross Kilmarnock Inverness Greenock Inverclyde Port Glasgow Coatbridge North Lanarkshire Glenrothes Fife Airdrie Falkirk Stirling Rutherglen Dumfries Galloway Motherwell Wishaw Clydebank West Dunbartonshire Bearsden East Dunbartonshire Cambuslang Newton Mearns East Renfrewshire Bishopbriggs Musselburgh East Lothian Arbroath Angus Polmont Elgin Renfrew Renfrewshire Alloa Bellshill Clackmannanshire Blantyre Dumbarton West Dunbartonshire Kirkintilloch Clarkston East Renfrewshire Bathgate West Lothian Stenhousemuir Falkirk Peterhead Aberdeenshire Barrhead Grangemouth Falkirk St Andrews Kilwinning Ayrshire Viewpark Buckhaven Penicuik Midlothian Stranraer Johnstone Erskine Larkhall Moray