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The first indication Malcolm McKenzie had of his predicament was when a neighbor urgently banged on his door and informed him his cherished Mini had plunged into a hole.

"I went out anticipating a minor dip under a tire or something like that. But when I went out to take a look, I realized, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he explained.

His automobile had descended into a 10-foot wide gap, likely created by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days stuck in a administrative "difficult situation" trying to determine how to retrieve his car.

The Core Problem: Unclaimed Property

The hitch is that the land has no registered owner. The local council has said it won't take down the fences cordoning off the hole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed creative. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood in Redruth for about 10 years and actually has a designated spot beside his house, but it is too narrow to be useful so he started leaving his car outside a local bakery. He had checked with both the shop and the council that he wouldn't get a parking fine.

"I'd finally felt like I was getting somewhere, I had a reliable small vehicle that was fuel-efficient and simple to keep on the road. It meant I could finally focus on trying to save up to take my child on her dream trip to Japan one day. She's always wanted to go."

The Event and Consequences

Then arrived that loud rapping on Saturday 1 November. "The person next door was quite panicked. The officers arrived and secured the area off. We all had to remain in the houses because we can't get out without passing by the collapse. The highways people came out, put the fence up, and then they came out and put a additional barrier up surrounding it as well."

It is thought the hole may be an unfortunate remnant of a historic local mine, a abandoned mining site.

McKenzie believed he would be separated from his vehicle for a few days. But that short time have now become weeks.

A Possible Resolution

An end may be in sight. The council has stated it will cooperate with McKenzie to – briefly – remove the barriers to permit the Mini to be removed. He said: "They have agreed to assist my insurer's retrieval crew and try to schedule a date and an acceptable way of extracting it that doesn't put anybody at danger."

The car has been significantly harmed and is likely to be declared a total loss. "At least I can say my Mini met its end in a memorable way – not everyone can say their car was swallowed by the Earth itself," McKenzie remarked.

Authority Statement

A representative from the local council expressed it felt sorry with McKenzie. But it said: "The ground giving way did not happen on public property. We have made the area safe and informed the car owner that we will organize to lift the barrier to enable him to retrieve the vehicle.

"Since no one owns the land, our barriers will remain in place until land ownership has been determined, and we will persist to observe the surrounding area to guarantee everyone's security."