Car Repossession Law

[woody382]

today 2 males arrived in a car with no ID and just a bill of sale notice, stating that the car I bought in July had outstanding finance from the previous owner and that they were repossessing the car. As you can imagine i did not give them the car. Please could you help on the following questions.

1/ does a person need any form of SIA license etc to act as a recoevery agent to repossess a car.
2/ can they repossess a car that I bought in good faith, that had outstanding finance on from a previous owner, from whom i bought the car from.
3/ Does the recovery agent need the court order in their possession to recover the vehicle.
4/ Do they need a court order in the first place or can they just recover the car
5/ the DVLA issued me with a new log book. would they have issued me with a new log book if their was still a vested interest of a third party ie. log book loans.
thank you for your help

[Buenchico]

Re Q5:
A V5 ('log book') records the registered keeper of a vehicle, not the owner of it. DVLA do not keep records of who actually owns a vehicle, and they have no interest in such matters. Millions of vehicles, for example, are 'company cars' which are registered to the driver's address - so that he'll receive any speeding tickets, etc - but are actually owned by his employer or a leasing company. DVLA will have no knowledge that such vehicles are 'company cars' or of the financial arrangements relating to them. Similarly they have no knowledge whatsoever of whether a car was bought for cash or 'on finance'.

Re Q1:
Repossessing vehicles is not a 'licensable activity' for SIA purposes:
http://www.sia.homeoffice.gov.uk/Pages/licensing-activities.aspx

Re Q2:
Buying a car in good faith (from someone who had no right to sell it) gives you no more rights than, say, if you'd bought stolen goods in good faith. The goods/car still belong to the original owner. All you can do is to take civil court action for compensation.

Re Q's 3 & 4:
I've repossessed hundreds of vehicles (as a 'trade plater') but always from the person who'd defaulted on the finance, rather than from a third party. There were certainly no court orders involved in the process then and I doubt that they'd be required (in the first instance) in your circumstances. However, since you've refused to hand over the vehicle, a court order could now be sought which would force you to give it up (or face criminal prosecution for failing to comply with a court order).

[woody382]

thank you so much. that's answered my question

[EDDIE51]

Do an online HPI check on the car and see if there is finance on it.
You should have done one before you bought the car!
Was this a private purchase or trade?

[smartypants10101]

NO NEED FOR SIA LICENSE
2)YES THE CAR CAN STILL BE REPOSESSED EVEN THO FINACE IS STILL OWED
3)YES THEY DO NEED A COURT ORDER
4)NO THEY WOULD NEED THE COURT ORDER FIRST
5)YES A NEW LOG BOOK CAN BE SENT TO U AS , THE REGUISTERED KEEPER IS NOT ALWAYS THE LAWFULL OWNER

[lcg]

my son did a check on his motorcycle when he bought it and the search came up negative for loans etc. it got stolen 2 months ago and the insurance company are not paying out as it has a loan on it. you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

[pauln90]

Re Eddies reply

The problem could be that the car was subject to a Bill of Sale agreement or "Log Book Loan" and
unfortunately it is not mandatory for the lenders to register this loan against the car so a HPI check may NOT show that finance is outstanding.

However it would appear that HPI do offer some protection

If a customer conducts an HPI Check, follows HPI's buying guidance, but subsequently finds that the vehicle is subject to a 'Bill of Sale' agreement that was not flagged, the buyer will be protected by the HPI guarantee, which provides financial reimbursement of up to £30,000 (subject to terms and conditions,

The above is a quote from an Honest John article

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/buying-and-selling/2011-05/logbook-loans/