Free Traffic Legal Advice

Presumably now they have died somebody needs some form of executors powers. Who might that be ?

Good question. The estate is intestate so no will and no Executor. The family are currently still at the information-gathering stage to ensure the estate is solvent (it now appears to be) and so no-one has yet applied to be Administrator.

Regarding the penalty. It is an offer to settle the matter out of court. (Has a penalty actually been received or was it just clamped).

It's only recently been clamped and there's an offer to settle the matter out of court.

Not accepting the offer should eventually result in a DVLA prosecution. But of whom? I would imagine that they would choose not to proceed when notified.

So thanks to the helpful comments here (and particularly @facade for directing me here) it seems the family can allow the car to be towed, politely decline or simply ignore any Out of Court Settlement offers and then once DVLA become aware the RK has passed away they should drop any further action.

I'll update the thread if/when DVLA respond or if there are any further developments.

If the car is worth very little I don't see any point in worrying about it. Let them keep the car and dispose of it. It'll svae you the hassle.

Agreed but I don't want to suggest that if it means the fines/fees just get even larger especially when they start adding £21 a day storage fees.

The concern is if the estate will still owe all that even once the car has been crushed or is there some mechanism whereby having the car crushed extinguishes most of the fees just leaving a token DVLA fine and a nominal amount of back tax?

A helpful poster on MSE suggested I post my predicament on here. An elderly relative unwittingly SORNed his car even though it was still parked on a public road outside his house. (The car had failed its MOT just as the relative became very unwell, a short while later they were admitted to hospital and sadly a few weeks later they passed away.)

While in hospital the car was clamped and I believe there's now a £280 fee to pay to release the clamp. If it's not paid then the car will be towed incurring more fees and ultimately crushed. However the car isn't worth much more than the fees already due, we don't think it's a runner anyway and even if the clamp release fee was paid there's nowhere to store it off-road.

The family aren't rich so I'm looking for the cheapest/easiest solution to get them out of a bad situation.

It has been suggested that the best option may be to do nothing for now, allow the car to be towed/impounded and then sign a waiver for them to crush the car which may cancel the clamp/impound fees. This may just leave a much smaller DVLA penalty plus a small amount of back-tax to pay. Does anyone here know whether this suggestion is feasible or not or have any alternative suggestions?