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Full Version: [Portugal/UK] I have been treated differently based on my nationality. It is discrimination, is there something i can do about it?
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Roamingandy
A UK vehicle but not in the UK. Just hoped someone here might have some advice.

My beloved camper van is gone. It was towed away by the Portuguese police and sold as scrap to an ELV center who refuse to give it back, regardless of how much i offer to bribe them. Even just to keep as derelict on private land.

The last few weeks were a bit of blur, its only today it occurred to me that there is no-way this situation would have happened to a Portuguese person. In fact similar situations happen every time i interact with the local municipality.


# Starting with my van

**Backstory**

I had to leave it for a few months as my wife needed to move away for medical treatment. I hadn't been able to import it as when Covid came the import offices closed down. When they opened i was told it had been in the country for too long and was now impossible to import, so i also couldn't take it with us. I parked it out the way of everyone.

**Key Points:**

1. The police suspected it was abandoned. They are supposed to contact the owner to check but as it wasn't imported it wasn't on their system, so they didn't.

2) My van has my website, social media and even email address painted on both sides. They didn't bother to try.

3) My van was previously towed away by them from next to my house (while it was still legally allowed to be driven) because they claimed the road i parked on was too small for it.

4) Other vehicles the same size regularly park on this road. In fact i can see them on Google Earth now. It was sus but paying the 600e to recover it was easier than arguing with them. They didn't contact me the first time either.

5) This means the police had records of my van and my contact details, but they didn't look for/use them. It was taken to the same storage yard who absolutely must have their own system for recording what vehicle is there, and have know it was there about 4 months earlier.

6) In my opinion it is reasonable to assume if the vehicle was owned by a Portuguese business/charity and had their contact details on the sides, the police would contacted them to ask if the van was abandoned or request it be moved. This seems like standard police work.

7) EU Directive 2000/53/CE introduced the ELV system to make sure vehicles that had come to the end of their serviceable life were properly disposed of to reduce environmental waste. This is the same system used in the UK as we haven't got around to making our own law yet.

8) Can any reasonable minded person consider that law applies to a well maintained vehicle worth 35,000 euro (the cost to replace it like for like), and that the environmentally friendly option is to scrap it? The law was implemented in a way that was directly opposite to its intended purpose.
(My van was also WVO modified and ran carbon neutral, but they couldn't have know that).

9) The ELV center didn't destroy it, it was very clearly too nice of a vehicle. Instead they sold the engine then pushed my van right next to their office and painted their company name on it to use as advertising instead.


# Wedding?

My wife and i got married in Portugal.. just. We applied at the local municipality for a process which should have taken 2 weeks.

9 months we spent chasing our application. Thousands of emails, phone calls, letters (no exaggeration).

Besides destroying the moment somewhat and wrecking my wife's mental health, this actually went on so long that my finance's visa was starting to run out.

We eventually decided we would have to put everything in storage and drive to her home country, get married and then begin the long process of applying to come back and live in Portugal.

A friend of ours casually mentioned a local lawyer was a friend of his and maybe would give them a ring to see if he could get some information. This was on a Friday. Saturday morning we got an email from the council saying that he 'had chosen to come in on a Saturday to help us and our request to marry was approved. We could pick up the forms on Monday'

# To sum up

In my 3 encounters with the local municipality i have felt that i am being targeted based on my nationality and their treatment has cost me extreme mental anguish, an obscene amount of time, and a very large amount of money.

I am almost certain that none of those interactions would have had the same outcome if i had been Portuguese.

I emailed a few lawyers who specialise in UK issues but didn't hear back, which isn't a positive sign that there is enough for a case there. Does anyone here have a different opinion, and if so what would be your next step?

Edit: The British Embassy wouldn't help me with the import after the van got stuck due to Covid, or after it was towed away as they won't interfere in local laws.
Rob232
I have asked for this to be moved to the Flame Pit.
You will get more help and views there.
Roamingandy
Thanks @Rob232
TMC Towcester
This is May 2021 revisited in respect of this vehicle..............

TBH, it seems you have no attachment to Portugal and the police seem to have a 'marker' on you..................get the message?
cp8759
It is highly unlikely that anyone here could give you any advice on Portuguese law. Frankly if I had been you and my car were stuck in a foreign country, unable to be either driven or imported, I would have just dashed for the Spanish border and driven it home, and looked into starting the import process from scratch at some later time.

Anyway, if your vehicle was impounded for whatever reason, what we do know is that as an ECHR signatory the Portuguese state must afford you a hearing of the dispute within a reasonable time before an impartial and independent tribunal. The process to be followed would be prescribed by Portuguese law so you'll need to look into that. There might be some sort of appeals process, or maybe you just sue the police, again you'll have to research Portuguese law about this.

If you find that there is no effective and accessible remedy that permits you to at least argue your case before a court or tribunal, then you can look at a claim before the European Court of Human Rights for breaches of your rights under Article 6 (fair trial etc) and Article 1 of Protocol 1 (interference with property), but before you can go to the ECHR you have to exhaust all domestic law remedies.

By the way none of this has anything to do with your nationality as far as I can see.
Gerfc1
I am surprised the police has not given you paperwork.

I am not sure how well you can speak Portugese but you could go to local court and see if they can point you to the right place or a Portugese equivalevent CAB.

It is pointless asking an UK lawyer, it does not exist - it is either English and Welsh lawyer, Scottish lawyer or Northern Ireland lawyer.

English and Welsh lawyers cannot give legal advice in Scottish law and vice versa - they are not allowed anyway. Plus they cannot give legal advice for Portugese law.
andy_foster
Under EC Law it is unlawful to discriminate against EU citizens from other nations. It is in some cases mandatory to discriminate against non-EU citizens.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the greatest expression of democracy in our lifetimes to leave the corrupt cabal, Brexit seems to have been more of a journey than a destination, but if at the applicable time you weren't an EU citizen, being treated less favourably than a local (or an EU citizen) doesn't seem to have legs.
cp8759
QUOTE (Gerfc1 @ Sat, 29 Oct 2022 - 20:38) *
English and Welsh lawyers cannot give legal advice in Scottish law and vice versa - they are not allowed anyway.

I think that would be a surprise to many. Aside from immigration law, there are no restrictions in the UK about who may give legal advice. I'm not a lawyer at all, but I give advice on English & Welsh, Scottish and more rarely even Northern Irish law. Nobody has ever told me I'm not allowed.
Gerfc1
QUOTE (cp8759 @ Sun, 30 Oct 2022 - 11:50) *
QUOTE (Gerfc1 @ Sat, 29 Oct 2022 - 20:38) *
English and Welsh lawyers cannot give legal advice in Scottish law and vice versa - they are not allowed anyway.

I think that would be a surprise to many. Aside from immigration law, there are no restrictions in the UK about who may give legal advice. I'm not a lawyer at all, but I give advice on English & Welsh, Scottish and more rarely even Northern Irish law. Nobody has ever told me I'm not allowed.


That is fine but it is for lawyers only. They would refuse to give legal advice for different jurisdiction because their insurance would not allow to do that.
roythebus
It may help to know where the van was registered; was it it insured; did it have a valid statutory test certificate? Since the abolition of the requirement to show a valid tax disc on UK registered vehicles it has been a bit more difficult for EU police forces to check that as there's no longer any international cooperation available for non-UK police with the DVLA.

Are you aware, assuming it's a UK-registered vehicle, that there's a time limit on how ong you are allowed to drive in other countries? I believe it used to be 6 months. It you were in the same place for longer than that, you are in breach of the law. the van should have been registered in the country it's visiting. This seems to be largely ignored by EU police forces as there's so much cross-border traffic with people commuting to work in adjoining countries on a daily basis. But a UK van parked on a bit of waste ground for more than 6 months is likely to attract attention. Maybe local laws allow a vehicle that is apparently abandoned to be removed.

Did you personally have permission to stay in Portugal? Visa? Work permit? If you are on a UK passport you are only allowed to stay in the EU collectively for not more than 90 days out of every 180 days since the B word unless you have a valid visa or work permit.
Roamingandy
QUOTE (roythebus @ Sun, 30 Oct 2022 - 14:09) *
It may help to know where the van was registered; was it it insured; did it have a valid statutory test certificate?

Are you aware, assuming it's a UK-registered vehicle, that there's a time limit on how on you are allowed to drive in other countries? I believe it used to be 6 months.

Did you personally have permission to stay in Portugal? Visa? Work permit?


Thanks for your reply.

Its a UK registered van. The insurance and MOT ran out during Covid when i was planning on importing the van to Portugal. The import centres were closed.

After Covid i couldn't import it as they said it had been in the country for too long already so it sat on a road while i tried everything i could think of to find legal help, or a way to get it legal again.

I have an Irish passport so i can stay and i have my residency in Portugal. I would love to have just taken my van and left but i have a wife and a long contract on a flat.

Unfortunately my wife also got sick and we had to travel for her treatment. I had a friend nearby keeping an eye on the van but they didn't notice it was gone until a month after they'd towed it.


QUOTE (cp8759 @ Sat, 29 Oct 2022 - 19:12) *
If you find that there is no effective and accessible remedy that permits you to at least argue your case before a court or tribunal, then you can look at a claim before the European Court of Human Rights for breaches of your rights under Article 6 (fair trial etc) and Article 1 of Protocol 1 (interference with property), but before you can go to the ECHR you have to exhaust all domestic law remedies.


Thanks. I've written to a few lawyers here. So far only one has any interest in taking the case.

The police appear to have followed the law, but i argue that it is basic police work when you think a vehicle might be abandoned, to contact the owner and ask. They say that they didn't as it wasn't on their system, but my email, website and social media were written on the outside. The police also had my contact details as they towed it a few months earlier as they said it was too big for a road it was parked on, which is bollocks as there are always equally sized vehicles parked there. They chose not to contact me (and i am sure they would have contacted someone Portuguese).

QUOTE (TMC Towcester @ Sat, 29 Oct 2022 - 15:28) *
This is May 2021 revisited in respect of this vehicle..............

TBH, it seems you have no attachment to Portugal and the police seem to have a 'marker' on you..................get the message?


Yes, that's what it feels like. I offered them 2.5 grand to give the van back, even if it was just to tow it to Spain and keep it off road there as a holiday home because I'm very sentimentally attached to it. They said no.
roythebus
In that case it goes back to what I said, in effect you cannot keep a UK registered van in an EU country for longer than 6 months (I think that's the time limit). Maybe you'd have been better off getting it registered in Ireland?

If any solicitor were to take the matter up it would probably cost a lot more than the van is worth. I doubt your claim for discrimination would get very far as you're an EU citizen.
Roamingandy
I looked into it, but it would basically have been a case of having it towed to Ireland and driving it back. Would have been insanely expensive.

> in effect you cannot keep a UK registered van in an EU country for longer than 6 months

I know, but i also couldn't legally drive the vehicle out again. Not much i could do about Covid hitting and preventing the import. I was hoping there would be some way around it, but i never found it despite sending hundreds of emails and researching everything i could find.
roythebus
I suggest you'll have to give it up as a bad job. I doubt there's any discrimination as you are an EU citizen by way of your Irish passport and the laws on keepig foreign registered vehicles in EU countries is clear. Had it been off road on a bit of private land you would have stood more of a chance on it not being towed away in the first place. But then the laws of continuous insurance apply in the EU. It wasn't insured, it was towed away and destroyed as required by law. Maybe the police thought it was in a clearly unroadworthy condition as well.
mickR
QUOTE (Roamingandy @ Tue, 1 Nov 2022 - 00:21) *
I had a friend nearby who didnt bother keeping an eye on the van so they didn't notice it was gone until a month after they'd towed it.


fixed that for you wink.gif
cp8759
QUOTE (Roamingandy @ Mon, 31 Oct 2022 - 23:21) *
After Covid i couldn't import it as they said it had been in the country for too long already so it sat on a road while i tried everything i could think of to find legal help, or a way to get it legal again.

Bit late now but as I said, I would have just dashed to the Spanish border and on to Calais. Odds are if you'd just driven it back to the UK, the problem would not have arisen. Of course there would have been a chance of being stopped by the Portuguese police along the way, but it was illegal for it to be parked on the road anyway and the chances of being stopped would not have been that great.
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