Fly-tipping: when it becomes your fine

Whose fine is it

Somebody dumps a sofa in a lane. It is traced back to you, because your address is on a letter inside it. You paid a man with a van £80 to take it away three weeks ago and you have no idea who he was.

The council can fine you. Not him, you.

That surprises most people, and it is the single most useful thing on this site to know before you book anyone. The liability for waste does not transfer when the van pulls away. It follows the waste, and it follows you unless you can show you took reasonable steps to hand it to somebody authorised to take it.

What the duty actually says

It is section 34(2A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990:

It shall be the duty of the occupier of any domestic property in England or Wales to take all such measures available to him as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that any transfer by him of household waste produced on the property is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorised transport purposes.

Two phrases carry the weight. “Reasonable in the circumstances” is what you are judged against, and for a householder booking a clearance that means checking the carrier is registered. “Authorised person” is defined in the same section: your council’s collection service, a permit holder, or a registered waste carrier.

Note what the duty is not. It is not a duty to follow the van, or to know which transfer station took the load, or to keep records. It is a duty to check who you are handing it to.

What a council has to show

Less than you might expect.

Defra’s guidance to councils sets out the test directly: if fly-tipped waste is traced to a household and the occupier cannot identify who took it, or names a carrier who turns out not to be authorised, then it is reasonable to conclude the duty was not met.

There is no requirement to prove you knew the waste would be dumped. There is no requirement to prove you were careless in any other respect. The chain is simply: your waste, dumped, and no evidence you checked.

That is also why “he seemed fine” and “he had a proper van” are not answers. A van is not evidence. A registration number you looked up is.

The numbers on both sides

For the householder, this is a fixed penalty rather than a prosecution:

The early payment discount applies within ten days of the notice. Councils set their own figure inside that range, so what you would actually face depends on where you live.

For whoever did the dumping, the exposure is on a different scale. Fly-tipping is an offence under section 33 of the same Act, and on conviction carries an unlimited fine or up to five years in prison. Operating as a waste carrier without registering also carries an unlimited fine.

So the person who took £80 off you is risking a great deal more than you are. That is worth holding on to, because it explains the economics of the whole problem: a firm that intends to dispose of your waste lawfully has to pay to do it, and one that does not, does not.

Cash in hand, and why it is the expensive option

A registered clearance firm pays to get rid of what it collects. Transfer stations charge by weight, and those charges are most of the difference between a quote of £150 and a quote of £80.

When a price is well under what everybody else quotes, the saving has usually come out of the disposal, not the labour. The waste has to go somewhere, and if it is not going to a transfer station it is going into a lay-by, a field gate or somebody’s alley. Then it comes back to you.

None of which means a cheap quote is a bad one. It means the question to ask is not “why is this so cheap” but “where is it going, and can I see your registration number”. A firm doing this properly will answer both without hesitating, because the second one is a matter of public record.

Check the number on our free checker, or on the Environment Agency’s own register. It takes about ten seconds, and it is the whole of what the law asks of you.