Hi skipRAT

In England and Wales it's not so much a matter of finders keepers. I'd like to start by saying you hit the nail on the head when you said that a quick knock on the door can solve things. It's so easy to do, and most times you get a yes anyway. If someone does say no, then it's a good job that you asked in the first place before taking it and getting into trouble for a bit of metal.

The issue with abandonment is a bit more tricky. It all comes down to whose land the metal sits on, and the intent of the owner of the metal or the owner of the land. Some examples would be:

Metal exhausts left in a metal only skip outside a car repair business. These are clearly meant to be sold as scrap, so taking them without permission would be theft. That's an easy one.

Now if the skip was full and some exhausts were left on the ground next to that skip, it would be reasonable to infer that the intent of the owners of the car repair business would be that the scrap exhausts were also to be sold as scrap, and that it was just a matter of the skip being too full to accommodate them. Taking the exhausts on the ground next to the skip would also be theft.



Now imagine the skip had been collected, and for whatever reason, a new skip was not delivered. What you now have is some scrap exhausts laying on the ground next to a car repair business. Is this metal abandoned? When you have all the facts above, the scrap exhausts are clearly not abandoned. They might look it, and you might assume they were, but you would be wrong. The intent of the car repair business is to put them in the next skip and sell them when that skip is full.

So what about taking stuff out of skips you find by the side of the road? Perhaps a skip used for clearing out a house that now has no occupants, or a house that has been refurbished by builders. The builders have finished their work and gone. There is no one at the property to ask permission from. You spot a washing machine perched nicely on top of the skip. Is it abandoned? Can you lawfully take it without permission?

The answer is no. At that point, the washing machine belongs to the skip company, and if you took it you would be stealing from them. Most skip companies now sort through the waste in their skips after they have removed them, and they certainly remove metal from the skips to sell by the ton. Taking the washing machine from the skip is unlawful, and you could certainly end up with a charge of theft by finding. Whether you would be found guilty at trial though is another matter, but in my opinion I would say that it is certainly possible.

As for TV's and white goods left abandoned by the side of the road - you could argue the case for hours, which is a job for lawyers who earn big money. In reality you could say you are doing our 'Big Society' a favour and taking it to the dump. It's just that on the way the TV got lighter

Like you said earlier, common sense is the best approach. Ask first, take second. And help out the Big Society by picking up abandoned stuff