Vehicle ownership and changing vehicle registered keeper

[John Phillips]

Who has the receipt for the purchase and whose name is on it?

[Adrian]

John Rumm (John Rumm ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

"What money? Prove it..." - it was only a verbal agreement, remember. Worth the paper it's written on...

Well, quite. That further muddies the waters.

[Adrian]

matthew.larkin ( [e-mail]) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Mmmm. Would such a loan from a commercial source not have A & B jointly and severally liable? So A & B owe £5k, and if either does a runner, the other remains liable for £5k.

As you pointed out, the car's a separate issue, since the loan wasn't secured on it.

[PM]

They borrowed the money as a couple. He is unlikely to pay anything back - he/they didn't while they had the car (by the original verbal agreement it would mostly be paid back by now).

I get the impression the parents are resigned to not seeing all the money - but to let B have the car is an unpalatable option.

[PM]

Three times and counting.

Someone I know

That's about the size of it. They would like to stop him keeping the car though.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Now we are getting somewhere.

[The Natural Philosopher]

what loan? they can easily say that they bought the car for him but retained ownership.

With no documentation to the contrary, its a matter of interpretaion.

I say take the car away and tell B that he isn't going to have use of it, and its not his. And give him the option of 'sign it away for 500 or dont sign and get nothing'

>

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you had a watertight case and zero court costs.

In reality, moving the car and trying to get the V5 reassigned, places the burden on him to sue for it: mostly people cannot be arsed.

The parents can even drive it on DOV insurance.

There is sufficient doubt about who owns it to make stealing an unprosecutable offence in this case.

Its a civil dispute over ownership.

HE wont pay 5k for a car worth 2.5k...

So they will never get their money back: without a contract they cant prove it was a loan, and not a gift.

Likewise he cant prove it was a gift, not a loan, or not indeed money supplied specifically to purchase a car to be owned by the parents for use of their daughters shagbunny.

One amusing option that presents itself, is to get it stolen and set fire to.

Park it up Arbury and leave the doors unlocked..

[Adrian]

The Natural Philosopher (The Natural Philosopher ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Not really.

Even in the unlikely event a receipt was handed over, and the vanishingly unlikely event it was kept, do you really think it'd somehow carry legal weight?

[The Natural Philosopher]

So drive it somewhere else.

Yu have keys, so its not breaking and entering. It is not even taking a car without the owners permission, since the owner is in dispute.

I think I would drive it straight to a garage, and ask them to change the ignition key since' we think the other key has been stolen' ;-)

[Steve Firth]

Well that's where a lawyer comes in. Because I'm not sure of what the difference is and who gets taken as the owner.

As others have pointed out the V5C is irrelevant to the question of ownership. The problem is as far as I see it that it depends who handed over the cash for the car. If he did it, then I suspect he is the owner. If the parents did it they are the owners.

The reason I think this way is that him paying for the car makes him the owner. Them lending him the money makes them his creditors, but since they did not create a hire purchase (or similar) agreement they have no charge over the car. Therefore it is his.

He still owes them the money.

We then get into areas of law I really don't understand which is can they have a lien over his property? If they do have a lien do they have the right to sell the vehicle to offset his debt?

I'll support my analogy with an example. I go to my bank and borrow £5000. I then buy a car for £5000. Does the bank own the car? No. I stop making repayments to the bank. Do they then have a lien over the car? No. Do I still owe them £5000? Yes. Can they seize the car and sell it to offset my debt? Possibly, but not before they have obtained a judgement in their favour from a court. Then in the event of non-payment they would have to return to court to obtain one of the following:

A warrant of execution - sending a court bailiff to collect the money. An attachment of earnings order - stopping the money from wages. A third party debt order - freezing a bank account. A charging order - paid on the sale of the defendant's house.

I think that's the position the parents are in, unfortunately. And I suspect that if Mr B. gets his act together he could have them for theft if they get hold of and keep the car. They are in a difficult position, their remedy in law is civil, which means they have to pay, it takes time and any decision will be effectively unenforceable.

All he has to do is to tell plod they stole his car and they end up with a criminal record.

IANAL.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. The DVLA wont send it to a new address on a 'lost V5' basis. I got a duplicate when I threw mine out accidentally, but it was only a duplicate.

Otherwise,. I nick a car, tell them I am the same bloke wot registered it, get a new one sent to *my* address, and sell the car,? not likely.

[Adrian]

The Natural Philosopher (The Natural Philosopher ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

None of "Family A", parents or Miss A, drive according to the original post.

Probably a ton of H&S reasons why not...

[Adrian]

The Natural Philosopher (The Natural Philosopher ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I'd have expected "I've moved, and can't find the old V5 to change the address" to be probably about the most common reason for issuing replacements...

"Hello, yes, I've got this car that's on the stolen vehicle register, but it IS mine, honest. Yes, Mr... Umm... Smith. Yep, that's me. Well, it's spelt 'Brown', true, but pronounced Smith. Do feel free to send the Stolen Vehicle Unit round to my new address, won't you?"

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes, some. Civil cases are decided on a balance of probabilities.

If for example B's name ws on it, ther would be reasonable evidence the cash was a gift to him to make the purchase, if Miss A's was on it, almost a direct contradiction that he was in any way involved in its ownership.

I mean, dos my putative chauffeur own the car registered to him that I get him to drive me round in?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well in that case Miss A should report it stolen :-)

[Alasdair]

[Chris S]

Steve, I agree with all you say and add an observation.

If Mr B bought the car then presumably his partner, Miss A, received approximately half of its value as a utility even if she doesn't drive.

So it would be reasonable to expect she pay half. IANAL but I think the law would uphold this even if there was no written contract.

So this adds a related additional monetary consideration to the situation.

The half Miss A would be expected to pay for may be: (1) half the cost price (2) half the depreciation. Running and maintenance costs would be an extra amount to be split between in both (1) and (B).

If she paid half the cost price, possibility (1) above, then half the loan could be seen as being for her. Especially if the money was loaned with the understanding that it was to buy a car for both Mr B & Miss A.

[Steve Firth]

And after thinking about it again, Mr B also has another option. If he reports to the police that his car has been taken, the police don't even have to prove theft in order to get a conviction.

Theft requires that the parents have the intent to permanently deprive Mr B of the car. I'd say that if they had their wits about them they could argue that they did not intend to steal the car, but to hold it to force B to pay up and that they fully intended to return the car in good condition. That is a reasonable defence to a charge of theft. However the indication in previous posts is that they do intend to permanently deprive B of the car which is theft.

However even if they do get it right WRT any statements made about keeping the car or selling it on (i.e. deny that was their intent). They can still be charged with "Taking Without Owner's Consent" the infamous "TWOCing" it's far easier to get a conviction for TWOCing than it is to get one for theft. Net result is still the same whoever took the car gets a criminal record, DNA on database, etc.

If the parents have anything shady in their past, then getting arrested for any reason could be a big mistake, since all new DNA samples are searched against all extant scenes of crime samples. I'm not making statements about whether they are likely to have a reason to want to avoid being arrested, I'm saying they really need to think very carefully about their actions. Not simply to react in anger because of what has happened.

[PM]

Plus I doubt it's insured ATM anyway