WIX Archives
Re: Who owns them anyway??
Posted by andy saunders on Sun Jul 07, 2002 09:30:53 AM
In reply top Re: Who owns them anyway?? posted by Richard Woods on Sat Jul 06, 2002 10:25:43 AM
: Hi all,
:
: I guess with this debate and all, I ought to tell what I'v
: e done with NF920 in Sweden.
:
: When reading through the Guidance Notes sent to me by the
: Ministry of Defence/RAF it said all wrecks are crown prope
: rty, as Andy pointed out, so I wrote to them for permissio
: n.
:
: Then I thought about the fact it is in Sweden, and that th
: e very same Guidance Notes claim ownership of any crashed
: foriegn military wrecks in the UK. So surely the Swedish a
: uthorities would claim things the same way? After all Swed
: en was neutral so they could claim the aircraft was intern
: ed/impounded, in much the same way as the several B-17s an
: d B-24s that ended up there. So I wrote to them too.
:
: Then I thought about the landowner. The fact it was in a h
: eavily forested area. All these people got letters, and th
: ankfully for me they all consented. All of them claim owne
: rship, and if one of them had said "No." then Elsie would
: stay where she is. Sure, the people living in the nearby t
: own will be a little miffed, but I can't ask all of them,
: and if they feel so strong about her they should have pres
: erved her years ago.
:
: By getting permission from all the diiferent people who cl
: aim her as their own, I can happily get on with what I'm d
: oing, knowing that when she is safe in the UK, no-one is g
: oing to come up and say "Hey, that's mine, you took it and
: you didn't ask me." and then start legal proceedings agai
: nst me.
:
: There is at least one Lancaster in the UK in good conditio
: n, and a Manchester if you know where to look, I could hav
: e gone for either of those, and just dealt with the MOD. B
: ut I took a chance that everyone would give me a green lig
: ht, 'cause I think that Elsie is worth the hassle.
:
: Besides, causing lots of hassle for people is a student's
: job!!!
:
: Cheers
: Richard
It's excellent news about Elsie, Richard. We all wish you the very best of luck!
I was very interested in your experiences in this case, and of course you took the right course of action by asking everyone who said or thought they owned it! That said, I still feel that the MOD's claim to title was tenuous to say the least. However, thats thankfully only an accademic point now in your particular case.
It is, though, still a highly relevant point which surely needs addressing. I know from recent discussions I have had that there are a number of warbird owners, restorers, restoration companies etc on both sides of the pond who are concerned about this issue. Even if the MOD are never going to exercise their "right" to ownership, the principle that they could still exists and could one day become an issue. What if the MOD had said that they still wished to retain ownership of Elsie, or continued to reserve their position, but then failed to take steps to recover her? It could have happened. Then what?
I do know that some "high profile" warbird people here in the UK have been asking these questions of the MOD very recently. The response? That the MOD are not yet in a position to answer this question. Curious!
Andy Saunders.