Advice please on using parent's car almost permanently

In the case of a couple living at the same address, there will be actuarial data from which the insurers can assess the risks and, if there are any left who don't have a car each, the insurers won't be particularly bothered which one is named as the main driver. Where the car is kept by one driver, who lives at a considerable distance from the named driver, it is fairly obvious which one is going to be using it most. Not only will there be no relevant actuarial data, making it impossible to assess the risk accurately, but the area for which it is insured will be different from that in which it will mainly be used, which may well affect the cost of the insurance. The reason I looked at doing this as a student was that, at 7/10/- p.a,. insurance for Glasgow was even dearer than that for the part of London I lived in at the time.

Colin Bignell

Agreed, but I answered the question actually asked, not the one I thought might be implied.

Colin Bignell

Could you indicate where in the legal aid system there is a means test involving assets?

The whole thing sounds like tosh to me.

Almost all insurance policies do not allow this sort of thing. The person listed as the main driver has to be that - ie, the person who drives the car most of the time, and a named driver would be someone who occasionally drives the car. And the registered keeper should always be the person who keeps the vehicle, regardless of who owns it. Of course, there would be no problem with her paying for a car and insurance in your name.

If I were you, I'd look into seeing how expensive your car has to be to impinge on legal aid. It's perfectly possible to buy reliable cars for £300 nowadays, so you could always run around in a banger whilst you play the benefits system.

Why . Surely it is up to anyone else to show that he owns it and not up to him that he shows he does not own it . In any event his mother will have evidence that she bought it and nothing else will show that she sold or gave the car to him

Wrong.

There's no problem with her being the owner and registered keeper and the insurance being in your name, thus you build up the NCB but the car isn't one of your assets.

No, in my case the lease-hire company are the registered keeper. Which means that they can charge you for "processing" any penalty notices I incur. (fortunately extremely infrequent in my case)

Who does he *need* to convince?

I disagree completely with the last statement. There are quite a few situations where the car is kept by a person other than the registered keeper. Lease-hire vehicles and company cars come to mind.

The insurance company will usually require you to tell them at what address the vehicle is normally parked each night.

I'm not sure how the insurance company would go about proving that the insured person is not the main driver of the vehicle. And would the "main driver" be the person who (a) drives the most amount of miles or (b) drives the most amount of hours or (c) does the most amount of journies in the vehicle?

None of the above IMO. I think the ins Co would regard the main driver as the person who had the easiest availability for use of the car, which is most likely to be the driver who had it parked outside or near their house. Those suggested would be very difficult to measure. Mike.

But in many cases of parent/offspring, both drivers live at the same address.

It would probably also be difficult to prove, after the fact, where the car was normally parked.

No, the main driver can also be a named driver and not the policy holder. Frequently happens with family cars.

The registered keeper should be the person who buys that tax disk.

I think ins Co's have that pretty well covered. They are well aware of parents who think that they can reduce their son or daughters premium for their car by insuring the car in their name, with the son/daughter as a named driver. In the event of a claim it's not unusual for them to check by making enquiries or by observation as to who is/was the main driver.

Ins Co's are not above using investigators in the event of a claim. Neighbours would probably tell them where the car is or was normally parked.

Probably a case of if the ins dets sound logical they'll be accepted. If they don't, in the event of a claim they could be investigated and if the dets given were found to be false, at best the claim might be refused, and at worst could result in a charge of fraud. Mike.

Hiring the car for a nominal sum is a nice idea.

If my mother insured the car then isn't there is usually a clause while says something about "Not For Let Or Hire".

Or did you mean that I hire the car and then insure it myself? Hmmm, I'm not sure I can do that.

Cynic (Cynic ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Then it's the person who is the MAIN USER of the car.

It's usual that this comes into play where a teenage offsprog can't afford to insure their car in their own name, so goes as named driver on Daddy's policy. Of course, when said teenage offsprog stuffs their chavved-up Saxo outside McDogbits on a Saturday night, the insurers look a little closer...

In this case, there's not even anything to gain by insuring it in aged mother's name - the premium will probably be higher...

Turns out I am eligible for a civil action which would be for medical negligence. It seems this sort of thing takes take 2 or 3 years before it gets to court.

Hello Peter,

What I think you may have confused is legitimately and sensibly making arrangements to achieve the maximum benefit by adhereing to the ruls of the Legal Aid system.

If the only way for me to have a car is to resort to fraud then I will not have one.

After all, my mother is not obliged to make me a gift just so that the Legal Aid system can lay claim to its value. Nor do I have to drive a car as I have managed without for some time.

Can you tell me if you know for certain that keeping and driving my mother's car on a regular basis amounts to fraud in these circumstances?

I didn't know that I could insure myself to drive someone else's car. I thought there is something in the world of insurance about having to have an "insurable interest" in the car.

I think the idea of "insurable interest" (or whatever it is called) is to prevent a person insuring something which belong's to someone else such as my neighbour's fence and then being in a position to damage the item (the fence) fence and make a claim but without having suffered any loss.

If you see what I mean.

Andy, if gifting me the car and makingme the owner is a problem then she would retain ownership which means that if ther car is sold then she woul dget the money from the sale.

The most I benefit from this would be to get the use of a car for myself and you could calculate that as a sort of hire.

However, let me give a similar example ... a hypothetical family is all on benefits - the father, mother and not-so-young son. If the father owns a car but the mother and son don't then surely the son would drive the car and not have any benefits reduced.

I guess(???) it doesn't matter if the son lives with his parents or across town, he surely would be allowed to drive his father's car at no penalty.

In my case I do not live across town frommy parents but live across the country. Admittedly, I also become the keeper of the car too.

A quite different example might be if my mother bought me a swanky home cinema system for 2,000 and a PC for 1,000. Would receiving and owning these reduce any state benefits I received?

Are there any state benefits which consider the monetary value of a car?

To the best of my knowledge, no. Nor have I ever heard of any means test which would take into account a non-liquid asset such as a car.

Could you give us a reference to this test which you are trying to circumvent?