Legal assistance with car rental agreements

Questioner

During my holiday I rented a car. After a claim, a legal dispute arose with the lessor about the interpretation of the rental conditions and I (after rejection by the travel insurer) sought local legal assistance. (successfully, by the way). According to the travel insurance policy, contractual assistance is insured in the travel legal assistance section, however, the terms and conditions of my travel insurance state that there is no coverage for matters arising from or related to the ownership, possession, holding or (selling) of motor vehicles. The company states that the insured rented the car and was driving it at the time of the incident, which means that he can in any case be considered the owner of the car at that time. The latter is disputed by me. In both the Road Traffic Act and the Motor Vehicle Liability Act, the term holder is defined as follows: holder of a motor vehicle or trailer: the person who: 1°.has possession of the property under a hire-purchase agreement, 2°.has usufruct, or 3°.otherwise, other than as owner or possessor, has in his possession for permanent use; This implies that renting a car for a few days does not mean that a renter of a motor vehicle can also be regarded as the holder of the motor vehicle. On this basis, in my opinion, the reimbursement of travel legal assistance costs has been refused by the company on incorrect grounds The KIFID ombusdsman follows the company's position and points out to me the possibility of submitting the case to the KIFID Disputes Committee or to the court. Please give your opinion on the above

Lawyer

I disagree with you. It is about the private law concept of holder. A tenant also falls under that. For a clear explanation see for example http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houderschap.

Lawyer

Neither the Road Traffic Act nor the WAM apply because the dispute is about the content of the rental agreement. In addition, you indicate that you have engaged local legal assistance, so the accident may not have occurred in the Netherlands and then the Road Traffic Act and the WAM certainly do not apply. But you could try now that the Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that a tenant is not the owner of a motor vehicle if there is no question of permanent use In the Explanatory Memorandum to the WVW 1994 proposal (Parliamentary Papers II 1990/91, 22030, no. 3, p. 63), the Minister wrote that the definitions of terms included in the first paragraph have been largely adopted unchanged from the Road Traffic Act. It is therefore also reasonable to assume that what the Supreme Court taught in HR 29 October 1991, NJ 1992, 235 on the content of the term 'holder' in the Road Traffic Act has retained its validity for the WVW 1994. The Supreme Court ruled there that a person who has the motor vehicle in his possession for only a few days cannot be regarded as a 'holder'. In his preceding conclusion, Mr Meijers refers to the legislative history of Article 1 of the Road Traffic Act, more specifically to the ideas that the legislator had for the interpretation of the holdership. I quote from the legislative history: 'D. The definition of the term 'holder' The obligation laid down in the regulation to ensure a new registration upon termination of ownership or ownership entails the need to further define the concept of 'holder'. If this were not done, it would be difficult for both the private individual and the investigative authorities to determine in which cases there is an obligation to register. However, given the many forms of ownership in the Dutch legal system, it is not possible to provide an exhaustive list of the persons who should be regarded as holders. For this reason, only those who may reasonably be assumed to be permanent users of a motor vehicle have been designated as holders. To this end, Article 2, third paragraph, under b, c and d of the Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance Act has been used. For the rest, the holder is regarded as the person who, other than as owner or possessor, has the motor vehicle in his possession for permanent use. ' (1) Sustainable use is therefore characteristic of ownership. It is conceivable that sustainable use is divided among multiple (legal) persons. The court was able to judge from the evidence used that the suspect took the car into use on behalf of the lessee and was registered as the driver of that car. By judging that under these circumstances the suspect must be regarded as the 'holder', the court did not interpret art. 1, first paragraph under o, WVW 1994 incorrectly or incomprehensibly.

Lawyer

I do not see how what colleague Martens states subsidiarily can work. The WVM and WAM are namely not relevant to the issue. He himself indicates this. As I already indicated, in my opinion it concerns the private law concept of 'holder'.