Stoisits: Sold car "haunts" woman for years

Sold car "haunts" woman for years

ORF-Series "Bürgeranwalt" (“Advocate for People”) – Broadcast of May 24th, 2008

A Vienniese woman decided to sell her car in August 2006 because of the high running costs. She sold it to a car dealer under a contract of sale and assumed that this would meet all required formalities and that she had disposed of the car. As it turned out, her hopes were not fulfilled. For almost two years later she has had to battle with the municipal authority of Vienna.

It was a bit of a shock when the complainant received two penalty notices from two different municipal district authorities in September and October 2006 on the grounds of parking the car on a public highway without number plates. She successfully appealed against the first penalty notice, as she was able to produce the contract of sale with the car dealer. In the second case she did not file an appeal within the time limit as she was moving house, but in her application for restitution in integrum at the second municipal district authority she again produced the contract of sale and the decision of the first municipal district authority to stay prosecution. She was, however unable to persuade the authority to set aside the second (unlawful) penalty notice. The complainant could avoid by appeal a demand for almost € 1,000 for removal and administrative costs.

Ombudsperson Mag. Stoisits criticised the authority for not setting aside the penalty notice immediately on its own initiative. Only after contacting the office of the Ombudsperson did the complainant receive help and the penalty notice was eventually set aside in April 2008.
"This case also demonstrates the importance of completing all required formalities correctly and keeping the documentation when selling a car", stated Ombudsperson Stoisits. When a car is sold privately it is best to request the purchaser to produce some form of ID and to note everything in detail on the contract. One can never be sure that the purchaser is careful after the sale. If he fails to register the car and parks it on a public highway without a number plate– as it happened in the present case – the last registered owner will be traced who then has to prove that the vehicle no longer belongs to him.

Change of address was not notified to the Driving Licence Authority – penalty charge was paid back

In the broadcast of 12.4.2008 Ombudsperson Stoisits referred to another case of an unlawful penalty. A man from Upper Austria was issued with a penalty notice because he had failed to register his change of address with the District Administrative Authority. The Office of the Ombudsperson could clarify that registration of a change of address within the same district with the Driving Licence Authority has never been required and in the meantime the requirement of registration of address has been abolished anyway. The authority repaid the penalty to the complainant.

However, this does not apply to the requirement to notify the Vehicle Licensing Authority of a change of address, which is still in force. The Vehicle Licensing Authority needs to know the current address. Failure to notify may be subject to an administrative penalty by the Authority, Ombudsperson Stoisits emphasized. A clarification of this particular point seemed to be necessary for her, in view of the numerous inquiries received by the Office of the Ombudsperson after the first broadcast.

Retroactive loss of nationality – far from a solution?

During the broadcast on 15.12.2007 Ombudsperson Stoisits presented the case of a young man from Salzburg who had lost his nationality retroactively after his father had successfully brought an action to contest the legitimacy of his child. Suddenly he was in the same position as if he had never been an Austrian national. To be granted nationality again was much more difficult than expected.

During the broadcast the representative of the Provincial Government of Salzburg verbosely elaborated on the efforts of the Provincial Governor Gabi Burgstaller to assist the complainant. But of course nothing has happened since. The Federal Minister for Internal Affairs who had been alerted to the problem by the Office of the Ombudsperson, that this was a legal problem, i.e. a loophole in the law, did not react either.

"The Office of the Ombudsperson has been demanding since 1984 that there should be a special provision for entitlement in the Nationality Act for these cases", stated Ombudsperson Stoisits. Again and again there are instances where the affected persons believe themselves to be Austrians and are treated as such by the authorities for years and even decades. They have certificates of nationality, passports and even perform their military service. The Office of the Ombudsperson will continue to point out the requirement for action by the legislative and all members of the Internal Committee in Parliament have been alerted to this problem.