Aargh luckily not me but me neighbors have been caught twice...

We all live in private residences with parking permits to the rear, although private there is a maintenace company that looks after the communal areas.

So clamping firm turns up 8pm tonight, gets spotted so peeps run out to check cars, no-one clamped at this stage.

Clamper then rushes to his van and pulls out a clamp, the only car without a permit in his eyes, the neighbors boyfriend who offers to put valid pass in window or move car, clamper says not interested and clamps the car infront of him

He then refuses to remove clamp gets in van and drives off, even though the resident is on the phone to the company to get this resolved, in the end they have to pay £120 removal fine.

So as its a single access to the rear what would have happened if I had just blocked the way so he could not leave? Could he of clamped my car, would they have they any rights to do this?

As the owner of the car was willing to move car or put a sticker in the window did he have any right to clamp?

What are peoples thoughts?

[Edited on 6/6/10 by mark chandler]

I know its harsh but would he expect to get away with saying to the fuzz 'I'll put a valid tax disk in' after being caught?

Why wasn't it allready in the car?

I have lived in a flat in one of these types of places and vowed never to do so again it's rediculas that you only get 1 space per car, how is anyone going to visit and we all know most families have more than one car.

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Originally posted by YQUSTA
I know its harsh but would he expect to get away with saying to the fuzz 'I'll put a valid tax disk in' after being caught?

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Each house has 2 passes, vistor and owner, never an issue with parking, no residents complaining.

Turning up a 8pm on a Sunday is deliberately targeting visitors....

What sort of clamp was it?

You can remove a clamp yourself, so long as you don't damage it(criminal damage).
And there is nothing the clamping company can do(except put another 1 on).

So if it happens again, wait for them to leave, then just let your tyre down, push the clamp to the side and remove the wheels nuts, then push it to the other side and remove the rest of the nuts, then with the wheel off the car you should be able to squash the tyre down and push it out of the clamp.

Oh yes, take the clamp to the Police
station as lost property.(if they don't claim it, you'll get it back!!)

Of course the other option is, to put 4 clamps on your car, then the feckers can't clamp it!!

Don't you have an angry grinder?

Help him out.

I've removed about half a dozen, with no bother, it is harder if it's the chain type, because you have to pop the lower suspension arm out to get the chain off.

The way out, is to send a polite letter to the company explaining that he had just got in, and he was on his way to the house to pick up the parking permit.

Just on his way out to put it on the dashboard when the g a y l o r d officer put the clamp on his car.

As a resident do you not have a say in who the factor appoints as contractors? factors are supposed to operate for the benefit of the residents but often it is in favor of the contractor. As both factor and contractor make money at your expense. Never trust a contractor appointed by a factor.

The threat of changing factor may make a difference

Trouble is he's paid the fine now. I would have ground off the f'cker on the basis that he said he was putting a permit on the car (it wasn't like the permit was being used by another car so it was basically sat unused).

And anyway, if the clamp gets ground off without a witness who are they going to try and do for CD????

I would have challenged him for his ID and permission to be on private property.
He should also be DISPLAYING an SIA license as a vehicle clamper.

When he went, i would have ground the clamp off and thrown it in the bin or taken it to the scrappy to get some money out of it.

i have cut two off of my cars in the past never had any come back other than nasty letters. good old cordless hitachi angle grinder, haven't found anything it cant cut through yet

Agreed, cut it off!

Which wheel did he clamp ? I've heard they can only ever clamp the offside front, not sure if thats correct.

I always get confused with offside and nearside.


I have heard, it has to be the front drivers side so you can see it before you go off driving it.

Had he actually just arrived? If not he should have had the permit on there. Clampers are Scum and I agree with the Scotish Parlement that its extortion and should be illegal (It also doesn't help as the car is not only still there but unable to move). As said above getting them on the licensing issue and not displaying the right stuff and freely giving the right info is the best way, they could have even but the thing on the car and phoned the police and said it was there all along.

In the last couple of years parking has been getting worse in my street, with a huge number of cars parked illegally (Opposite a T-Junction, on the pavements, on the corner of a t junction with someone else parked oposit.) Not long after I got home on saturday someone parked a car with a trailer on the pavement directly across the road from my Driveway, my car and my neigbours van (both on the road) and leaving a gap only just big enough for cars to get through, so I kept getting woken up by people beeping their horns and by someone knocking on my door asking me to move my car (I made a point of asking how he intended to get through the smaller gap between a van and the obstruction If my narrow car was to wide, he's lucky I didn't have anything close by to hit him with. As you can imagine I'd welcome someone doing something about it. Though I really want is to live somewhere Vans are forbidden.

Sorry to rant, the best way to prevent clampers is get a car with Spats over the wheels like an Old citreon (Which had the added benefit of lowering when parked).

I agree as above, as long as you dont get seen or are confident that no one will grass you up cut it off on principle, another good one is to fill the key hole with superglue, when they come to release you they have no option but to either cut off an expensive padlock or damage the clamp to remove it, depending on the type, And unless they saw you do it they cant do a thing.....ask me how i know....

quote:

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Originally posted by snakebelly
I agree as above, as long as you dont get seen or are confident that no one will grass you up cut it off on principle, another good one is to fill the key hole with superglue, when they come to release you they have no option but to either cut off an expensive padlock or damage the clamp to remove it, depending on the type, And unless they saw you do it they cant do a thing.....ask me how i know....

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The signs have to be visible and obvious, and iirc completely unbroken.

True they also have to have a SIA licence, no idea if it's the standard manned guard one though.

Oh and if anyone wants to know who put the superglue in their lock tell them it was me
(unless I can actually get there of course!)