Car accident - driver not the registered owner.

murphyh2

Hi
I have a question regarding an accident my brother had.

My brother went to Oz for a year and gave his car to a friend to drive while he was away. They transferred ownership at the time so that his mate could tax and insure it. My bro came back last june and got his car back, but never got ownership transferred back into his name - long finger etc etc

His mate taxed it for him, but my brother insured it, and the car was in his possession, and he was driving it all the time.

About 2 weeks ago, he was sitting in traffic in broad daylight on a straight stretch of road, when an English woman came flying up behind him and braked too late. His car was destroyed - front and back. She admitted liability to him and to the Gardai and he got her insurance details.

The problem is that her insurance firm is English. An assessor was sent out to see my brother's car and agreed that it was a write-off, but couldn't assign a value because the English firm wouldn't accept an Irish assessors value, they just wanted him to confirm it was a write off. He sent them his report, and it's been 2 weeks.
My brother rang them last week and they claim they haven't received it yet (I'm dubious but there has been a postal strike I over there I think). In the meantime they asked him for the NCT disk and the Vehicle Reg Cert.

So my questions are:
1. Why do they need to see the NCT disc - should their own assessor not have noted this in the report (which they should have)

2. Also, why the Vehicle Reg Cert - I doubt they'll take possession of the car as it's an English firm. Will my brother not need this to send to the Motor offices here to get is listed as a write off?

3. It seems to me like they're dragging their heels on this, and I want to chase them up (and ask them the above questions), but the problem is that even though my brother owns the car in reality, they didn't notify the tax office of the change of ownership back to him. Will he have to get his mate to follow it up for him, or can my brother get the money for the car? Will they check the ownership before paying out? Can they do a change of ownership now, or is the payee the one who owned it at the time of the accident?

4. How long do you reckon this will take - he's currently using my car to get to work, and I'm on the bloody train! He needs the money to buy a new car!

Thanks for any info or advice on the above - don't wanna hear about him not transferring ownership (he knows he's an eejit).

Thanks
murphyh2

TheNog

why is ur brother chasing the woman's ins company? what's his ins company doing/saying about it?

ballooba

Could get messy with the whole 'insurable interest' thing. Although given that he was driving the car he is responsible for it. I don't know tbh.

murphyh2

His insurance company said they would chase it, but that it would be faster if he rang them himself and sorted out the assessor etc. cos everything between 2 insurance companies has to be done by post. It seems to be taking ages anyway, so I reckn he'll get them involved from now on.