A Volkswagen owner left his car parked for a whole year. It was an expensive pleasure, but there is no one to send the fine of one and a half million kroner to.
A parking stall worth the tidy sum of one and a half million kroner.
That's the unpleasant surprise awaiting the owner of a charcoal gray Volkswagen Golf that has been left abandoned at Berlin Brandenburg International Airport for over a year.
The car, parked right at the entrance to the airport, has become a fixture for parking attendants, who have been diligently covering the windshield with parking stalls for the past long time.
This is what Bild writes.
The parking company APCOA says the car owner now owes them 200,000 euros, equivalent to about one and a half million Danish kroner. The amount has grown sharply, as each minute in the parking lot costs 2 euros after the first free ten minutes are used. A full day in the lot costs 3,000 Danish kroner, or 400 euros.
The mystery grew when the airport contacted the police for help in finding the owner. A search of the motor vehicle registry showed that the car did not exist at all.
APCOA has now contacted the authorities in the hope of getting help in finding the owner or obtaining permission to remove the car.
– If the parking stalls have to be paid for, we must find the owner of the car and see if he has the financial means to pay, APCOA said in a statement to the German newspaper.
The police, airport management and other relevant authorities are now working together to find the owner of the car. At the same time, the possibilities of having the Golf removed from the airport are being investigated.
The case is not unique. In 2018, a green Honda was left outside a hospital in New Zealand, where it was also covered by parking stalls. In that case, the car turned out to be stolen and the owner had received compensation from the insurance company.
But in the case of the Berlin Golf, it appears the car is not registered at all. Authorities are continuing their investigation in hopes of solving the mystery of the abandoned car and the enormous parking stall. Or rather, who it should be sent to.
Other times, it's actually a case of bottling up. That is, of parking stalls. That's what Stina Odencrants was exposed to last year. Now she's warning other drivers. Read more about it here .
Other times, it is the parking companies that are the ones who are responsible without even admitting their mistake. This was the case when a parking company was caught handing out illegal fees in May 2023.
The company's employees distributed taxes at a location in Herlev on Zealand where they were not supposed to be. Only when the media got wind of the matter did management call it 'a mistake'.