The car is held and I have to go home. What should I do first?

Get the address, the file number and the contact in writing before you leave, and photograph the vehicle where it stands if you are still allowed near it. Those three pieces of information are what makes everything afterwards possible, and all three are difficult to obtain once you are in another country.

Can an assessment be made while the vehicle is held?

Where access is granted, yes, and the result is better than usual because nothing has been repaired. Where it is not, the work is done on the existing material: photographs from the scene, the record made at loading, and the file itself. We say plainly which of the two applies to your case.

Storage charges are running. Can that be stopped?

Not by the assessment, and not usually by argument at the gate. What helps is a dated invoice with the items separated and the date of arrival confirmed in writing, so that the period can be shown later. The charge itself is part of the file and belongs in it from the start.

How long can a vehicle be held?

There is no figure we can give, because it follows the examination rather than the damage, and we do not comment on proceedings. What is worth planning for is the release itself: it often comes at short notice, and the inspection belongs in the days immediately after it, before the car is moved or work begins.

My registration document was retained. Can the car still be transported home?

That is a question for the authority and for the transport company, and the answer differs from case to case. What we can say is technical: nothing about a transport prevents an inspection, but an inspection carried out before loading is worth considerably more than one carried out after it.

When the vehicle or the documents are held in Croatia: what still gets recorded

Most accident files abroad end with a decision about where to repair the car. A smaller group never gets that far, because the car is not released: it is held while the circumstances are being examined, and the registration document stays with the authorities. From that moment the question is no longer what to do with the vehicle, but what can still be recorded while it is out of reach.

Two different situations that get confused

The vehicle is held. It stands at a yard or a police compound and cannot be moved or worked on. This happens where the sequence of events is being examined, where the damage is severe, or where a technical examination has been ordered. The car is intact as evidence — which is inconvenient, and from the point of view of an assessment it is also the best possible condition.

The documents are held. The registration document, and sometimes the driving licence, stay with the authority. The vehicle itself may be free to move, but transporting it across a border without its paperwork is a separate problem with its own solution, and the two questions should not be mixed.

The distinction matters because the first situation is a limit on access and the second is a limit on logistics. Establishing which one applies is the first practical step, and it is answered by the written confirmation you were given at the scene rather than by anyone remembering what was said.

What to obtain in writing, and immediately

Very little of this can be reconstructed later from another country, and almost all of it is easy to obtain in the first days.

The exact address where the vehicle stands, together with the name of the company or the authority holding it
The case or file number, the unit dealing with it, and the date and time of the event
Written confirmation of what was retained: the vehicle, the registration document, the licence, or a combination
The daily rate charged by the yard, if any, and from which date it runs
The contact through which access has to be requested — a person or a department, not a general number

The daily rate is the item most often discovered too late. Storage runs from the day the vehicle arrives, not from the day anyone decides what to do with it, and on a file that takes weeks it can become a significant figure on its own.

What an assessment can still establish

Access is a matter for the authority, not for us, and it is requested rather than assumed. Where access is granted, the assessment is in fact stronger than usual: the vehicle has not been touched, nothing has been repaired, and the damage stands exactly as it was.

Where access is not granted, work continues on the material that exists — photographs from the scene, the police record, images taken by the towing company at loading, and the descriptions in the file. This produces less than an inspection, but on the questions that usually matter, extent and mechanism, it is often enough to give a usable picture.

One point is worth planning for. When the vehicle is finally released, it is frequently released quickly, and there is pressure to move it or repair it the same week. The inspection belongs in that window, before the car is moved, and arranging it in advance rather than on the day is what makes that possible.

What we do and what we expressly do not

We record the damage where the vehicle stands, relate the marks to the described sequence of events, and calculate the repair in a standard industry system. Where a vehicle is inaccessible we say what can and cannot be established from the available material, rather than presenting an estimate as a finding.

We do not obtain the release of a vehicle or of documents, and we do not correspond with the authorities on your behalf. We do not assess whether the retention was justified, and we express no view on the outcome of any proceedings.

We do not deal with personal injury. Where the file involves it, that part belongs to a doctor and to a lawyer, and it is assessed separately from the vehicle.

Where the matter is disputed, the right contact is a recommended lawyer under a separate agreement with you. We do not provide legal representation.

Frequently asked questions

The car is held and I have to go home. What should I do first?: Get the address, the file number and the contact in writing before you leave, and photograph the vehicle where it stands if you are still allowed near it. Those three pieces of information are what makes everything afterwards possible, and all three are difficult to obtain once you are in another country.
Can an assessment be made while the vehicle is held?: Where access is granted, yes, and the result is better than usual because nothing has been repaired. Where it is not, the work is done on the existing material: photographs from the scene, the record made at loading, and the file itself. We say plainly which of the two applies to your case.
Storage charges are running. Can that be stopped?: Not by the assessment, and not usually by argument at the gate. What helps is a dated invoice with the items separated and the date of arrival confirmed in writing, so that the period can be shown later. The charge itself is part of the file and belongs in it from the start.
How long can a vehicle be held?: There is no figure we can give, because it follows the examination rather than the damage, and we do not comment on proceedings. What is worth planning for is the release itself: it often comes at short notice, and the inspection belongs in the days immediately after it, before the car is moved or work begins.
My registration document was retained. Can the car still be transported home?: That is a question for the authority and for the transport company, and the answer differs from case to case. What we can say is technical: nothing about a transport prevents an inspection, but an inspection carried out before loading is worth considerably more than one carried out after it.