were would i stand if it went to court LATEST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[retrorigg]

18 months ago i recovered and stored a friend of a friends car at my workshop after he got banned and had crashed his car, the car was a p reg pug 306 diesel worth a couple hundred quid, real rough thing,

anyway as time went on i mentioned it to him a couple times about wot he wanted to do with it, he sed could i take it to his grandparents house n leave it there, i told him he,d have to sort it out as i no longer had a recovery truck

anyway 4 months after i last spoke to him i picked him up in my taxi and he asked me if i still had the pug, i sed yes but its totally fooked, its been parked outside for 18months, someone had nicked wipers and few other bits off it, he sed to me oh as in suprised i still had it, he sed to me he wasnt bothered as he,d been given a bmw and also had an astra to run around in, and that was that, i dropped him off at were he was going and i thought nothing else of it,

later that night he rang me again to pick him up from the party and take him into town, i picked him up n him been slightly worse for ware i sed look wot ya doin with this pug as i need it moving, he sed to me do wotever with it, but as an 19 yr old lad he sed to me (laughing and drunk)if my mum asks tell her it was nicked by the pikeys ,

few weeks later i had decided to move workshops n the pug was still there so i banged it on ebay as a one day listing as spares or repair only , after thinkin that the lad sed he wasnt bothered about it ,

i sold it for £80, (wasnt worth anymore) to a local lad that wanted it for spares , i told him it must not go back on the road it was for spares only, he agreed and said it defo wasnt goin back on the road,

i recieved a text from the lads mother 3 weeks later sayin someone had applied for the log book for the pug, i told her i got rid of it as her son told me he wasnt bothered and to do wotever with it,

her son denied saying this and they sed they had someone that had offered them 500 quid for the car, so if i give them 500 quid they,d forget all about it, i said its amazing that as soon as ive got rid of it someone wanted to buy it for 500 quid, i told them i wasnt giving them 500quid for it,

there now threatening me with court saying ive stolen there car

i didnt charge them any recovery or storage charges and the car had been laid at my place 18months plus with no signs of them doing anything about moving it even after id told them i needed it moving asap

where do u think id stand if this went to court,

[over_head_cam]

Tell them to get fooked.

 

Or, present them with a bill for 500 quid for storage

 

It would go nowhere in court

[retrorigg]

i was thinkin same, ill just hit them with a 3k bill for storage and recovery at a tenner a day , its actually quite worryin me tho, coz i think there pretty serious about takin it further

[Stu_B]

Give 'em £80 & a receipt for £420 recovery & storage! That's if you're feeling nice... otherwise tell 'em to do one!

[over_head_cam]

They're just chancers by the sound of it.

[retrorigg]

im 50/50 whether they will take it further, but knowing his mother she wont just leave it ,

so u think that if it did go to court they wouldnt have a leg to stand on

[over_head_cam]

It wouldn't get to court IMHO. It sounds like they are living in a dream world

[Arrie]

I send them a bill for recovery - whatever the going rate is, and storage on a per day basis, remembering that it has to be less if its outside. I know our local scrappy used to charge a quid a day for storage, and if you multiply that by 18 months then you're well into £500.

 

Give them the bill, and minus the £80 you got for the car.

 

Besides, who in their right mind would offer £500 quid for a car thats been off the road for 18months and not looked at it!

[petrolhead]

I don't think they stand a chance. Technically, the Pug has been abandoned by the owner as he left it there for 18 months. So you were well within your rights to sell it. Stick to your guns and as has said before you could counter claim storage costs If you still have a copy of the ebay ad keep that as it shows what the market value is.

 

Make a record of the time and date you spoke to him and what was said. I'm not a lawyer but her son is a liar and they don't have a leg to stand on.

 

good luck

[mk2 escy ron]

personaly i dont think they have a chance! they obviously werent bothered and the fact that u have had it for 18 months without charging them for storage should be enuff to get it thrown out!!

 

maybe if they wanna act this way all of a sudden, you should summon them with a small claims court order to recover a 'storage charge' for the 18 months u had the car and say u knocked the £80 off that you sold it for!!

 

see how they wanna play it when you threaten them back!

[johnston_evo3]

I'm on the other side of things at the moment I had things in storage, but when I lost my job they changed locks before I got it emptied ( but before last rent cheque was cashed)

 

I got some stuff but a lot of tools are missing. But as I stand I have been told to give them 14 days to return the stuff or it will be regarded as stolen and I can get police on the job and go through small claims court.

 

In my case but I wasn't given access to remove the stuff for a year, you gave your mate plenty of time and opportunity.

 

Keep yourself right and goto a solicitor before anything hasty is done and see what they say, I t shouldn't cost for a consultation on one hand it wasn't yours to sell on the other it could be classed as abandoned on your property,

Tell the mother due to crash damage (i assume you have pics with it being on ebay) It wasn't worth £500, she probably doesn't know that bit of the story.

 

Or offer to give them £500 after they pay you £510 for storage, recovery.

In hindsight you should have just towed it to the street and phoned the DVLA

[retrorigg]

the mother knew it was crashed, she even said a year ago they didnt know wot to do with it,and she agreed it wasnt worth doin up, when it 1st came upto my workshop i tried to sell it for them n noone would even give 100 quid for it, she made me laugh when she texted me when i told her id got rid of it, she said it didnt need much doing to it to put it right, and ive still got the text where she said it only needed a bonnet, wing, bumper, grill,headlights , tyres, brakes sorting out and a good clean and the stuff it failed mot on b4 it came to my place, which was bottom arms, front pipe, brake pipes , tyres and wiper blades

 

i must have told them 5 times to get it moved from my place and they didnt do anything about it, i had no choice but to get rid of it as i was moving workshops so obviously i could,nt just leave it there,

 

these people were kinda friends of mine hense dint mention storage or recovery charges, but now there threatening me with court for stealing there property then could i now give them a storage bill even tho it was never mentioned from the start

[Andrade]

I believe the car was standing around without plates or was he still paying license for it?

 

Here it sometimes happens that someone gets the plates garaged, and leaves the car in a parking space covered with a normal car cover and left there for ages. then eventually it bugs someone's ass, it gets reported and towed away.

 

If you have no written agreement that they are allowed to leave the car at your place you can somehow use that at your favor.

[retrorigg]

the car hadnt had tax or mot when it came to my place , and hadnt tax or mot when it left, not sure if they,d been SORN,ing it , i presume they probably had

 

we had no agreement at all for anything ,

[Andrade]

well, from what i can see the worst thing from your side is that you sold their car when it wasn't scrapped, and therefore their property. on the other hand their property was on your property for an age.

 

If someone takes a dump in my corridor i'd clean it up, if then they come and tell me they had swallowed a wedding ring and it might be in it a year later, and try blaming me for throwing their wedding ring away its their fault. you cant really not notice the wedding ring is missing for that long.

[retrorigg]

think wot ill do is hang on n see iff anything happens, if it does ill go see a soliciter and see what the law says about it,

 

i just have a funny feeling she wont let it lay

[livewire7116]

technically you sold a car which did not belong to you and had no bill of sale to yourself or and proof the original owner told you to dispose of it

[over_head_cam]

technically you sold a car which did not belong to you and had no bill of sale to yourself or and proof the original owner told you to dispose of it

 

That's true, but if no payment or offer of payment had been made regarding any work carried out, and/or storage then the sale was not for profit or gain, but to recoup any costs involved in the keeping/storage/transport of the vehicle.

 

Almost sounds professional doesn't it?

[Grizzley Dell]

if you had the car in your possesion for that length of time it probably belonged to you anyway. if they persist give them a bill for £9 a day storage. as far as your concerned the car had been abandoned at yours & no one came to collect it even after requests. then tell em to go forth and multiply. i hate muppets like that. i kept a bike for a mate for 9 years, when i told him to collect it or i would get shot of it he flipped, so i parked it out on the road & it got nicked.

[Vista]

Discussing this with err indoors (who is legally qualified to give you an opinion) and will come back to you later.

 

Suffice to say (unfortunately) it's not as cut and dried as some of the answers you've had already

[stevepeanut]

if you can, print out the £80 receipt off ebay, if it does go to court, that will show you got a tiny amount for the car

 

its not a nice story to read, I hope none of my mates would ever do that to me

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[bigglesmk2]

I dumped an old toyota corina or was it a corolla some crappy estate thing anyway,i left it in a pub car park up the road from my brothers years ago and never went back for it .

 

Just been and had a look and its gone ...

 

....i might take pub landlord to court WTF?

 

Some mate,tel him to do one.

If he crashed the car he should of claimed and if he didnt claim, was he actually insured?. If he had no insurance its not gonna look good on him is it and if he was insured and got a payout then the insures owned the car.

In which case you charge the insures storage fees.

[Vista]

Ok, the short version of this is that as it wasn't your vehicle to sell then yes in theory she could make a claim against you in the small claims court for the market value of the vehicle (taking its condition into account).

 

If this does happen, assuming there are no other witnesses to any of the arrangements or conversations that took place (i.e. the instruction from him to do what you want with it when you asked him to remove it) it will be your word against his in Court and will therefore be down to the judge hearing the case to decide who he believes.

 

Should he find in their favour he is highly unlikely to take their word for it that they'd been offered £500 for the vehicle and award £500 against you. Instead the amount awarded against you would be calculated by a valuation of the vehicle's current market value, taking into account of its post accident condition and any work needing doing to make it road legal. The text that you have from her would be considered evidence that she was fully aware of all the work needing doing and would therefore also be used as evidence of its condition for valuing the vehicle.

 

Unfortunately, if you hadn't made any written prior agreement to charge him for recovery or storage, this can't (in the eyes of the law) be used to claw back any of the value of the car for you. The court can be made aware of any verbal agreement and as above, it will be down to the judge who to believe.

 

Who would win the case? I can't say. From your version of events fairness would seem to indicate you are in a stronger position but sadly the law is often unfair.