Q&A - Unlicensed Car on Private Property

I have plates on my summer car year round. I insure it from May to October for the road use and keep storage insurance on it for the rest of the year. Not sure if its allowed but ICBC has never asked me to return the plates.

FWIW, the storage insurance is very inexpensive.

... I would simply buy a car cover (can only help protect your investment anyway).

Oh, and I sure recommend Storage Insurance; as I recall, there's not of a premium for the protection - and cars do get stolen and stuff.

Apparently you are being dealt with under PART TWO of the City of Castlegar Bylaw 1120.

"Maintenance of Private Property"

Sec 2  "No owner or occupier of real property shall allow his property to become or remain unsightly."

In PART ONE "Interpretation"

Sec 1 (f) states: "Unsightly" describes property having any one or more of the following characteristics:

(v) wrecked vehicles, parked or stored outside buidings on property, or inside a building but visible from a property line;

Sec 1 (h) states: "wrecked vehicle" : A motor vehicle as defined in the Motor Vehicle Act that:

(i) is not licensed for the current year; or

(ii) is not capable of being moved by its own motive power; or

(iii) is reduced to parts, frames, or bodies of a motor vehicle unless such vehicle or parts thereof are situated in and enclosed by a building

For starters, the term "licensed" ?  Do they mean "registered".  In BC you can't "license" a vehicle (get plates) without purchasing the basic $200,000 liability insurance on the vehicle.  There is a $60 per annum fee +/- on one's insurance called "license fee", however one cannot attend at an Autoplan office and pay $60 and "license" a vehicle.

Also, no car dealer, for example, licenses their vehicles while there are sitting on a car lot awaiting purchase.  It would be an extreme expense.  So, in downtown Castlegar, if there is a car lot, each and every unlicensed vehicle would be a "wrecked vehicle" according to this bylaw. 

Placing a "Storage Policy" is not licensing a vehicle.

This bylaw, I don't believe, is legal. 

If the bylaw included an "and" instead of the "or" between subsection (i) and (ii), it would make sense.  In otherwords a vehicle capable of being operated, but not currently licensed, that is sitting on private property, would then be legal.

The way this bylaw reads, if my currently licensed and insured vehicle broke down and I was in the process of repairing it (there is no time frame given in the bylaw) it would be illegal for it to be parked in my yard anywhere where it could be seen from the property line.

Crazy.

I do, however, suspect there is more to this enforcement action than a perfectly fit vehicle being parked on someone's property.

There is likely another "out", the bylaw states "wrecked vehicles",  (plural), if you have only one ?  that isn't "wrecked vehicles" it is "a wrecked vehicle"   More properly the bylaw should state "one or more wrecked vehicle"