legal car advice needed

[funkedelic2]

hey guys so I am wondering if anyone has an suggestions or ideas on how to proceed with a situation that has occurred.

So basically what happened was my dad bought a truck last February and it just didn't work out for him. He ended up "selling" it to my sisters ex husband (current husband at the time) and they made an agreement that he would pay him the $3000 that my dad had ended up paying for in cash for the truck.

No money was ever paid back to my Dad. He didn't consider that he wouldn't get the money for it so they never actually had a written agreement, just a verbal one. It's been over a year, a lot of shit went down between my sister and my ex brother in law and long story short, he has made no effort, arrangements or attempts to pay back my dad the money.

The thing is that after my dad gave him the truck to drive, he ended up selling the truck out of town to some other guy only after a few months! He received the money for the truck and yet paid none of it back to my dad.

Out of respect to my sister and to not get in between an already tough and messed up situation between her ex husband, my dad has waited and has given this guy a chance to pay him back without any success. Now that they are officially done and divorced, my dad has now been wanting to see what he can do to recover some of that cash back.

So, having said all that. My dad has the original bill of sale from buying that truck last year. He never officially sold it to my ex brother in law and so i have no idea how he legally was able to sell it. I wouldn't be surprised if he took the cash and fucked this guy over.

Is there anything that my dad can legally do now? Who should he contact and what options could he have?

[Black Gts]

So it's a 3k truck or is there financing involved. Probably a lesson learned imo.

[GQBalla]

nice father in law.

Basically he is screwed legally...

Nothing in paper

[ExtraSlow]

If you want to mess with the guy, small claims court is a possibility. But from a financial perspective, I'd say just let it go.

[funkedelic2]

Yes my dad is too nice. From all the shitty stuff this guy has done to people recently, I'm surprised he's not dead. This does not rank in top 10. Legally though, on paper I was thinking because my dad has the bill of sale, and he himself did not sell it to someone else. He could at the very least get this guy charged on something?

I figured it might not result in him getting actual money back and being able to sue this guy and win, but at the very least if there's a way to criminally hold this guy responsible for his actions, it would be a small win.

[J.M.]

Originally posted by GQBalla
nice father in law.

Basically he is screwed legally...

Nothing in paper

:werd:

So your dad never signed a bill of sale stating that he sold the car to him?

Would he be able to report it stolen then? Just wondering lol

[funkedelic2]

Originally posted by J.M.


:werd:

So your dad never signed a bill of sale stating that he sold the car to him?

Would he be able to report it stolen then? Just wondering lol

That's correct. He never sold it to him on paper, so he just drove it without insurance and reg and then probably realized that he didn't want to pay for it and sold it himself, stealing the money.

I thought of the same idea to report it stolen, the only concern is that so much time has already passed.

[J.M.]

Call the cops and find out :dunno:

[300zxfairlday]

he could have wrote a bill of sale from any random person signed it over to himself and got insurance/ registration.
Basically just a lesson learned , there is not much if anything that you can actually do. Its a verbal agreement which will never hold up in court becaus he could also say your dad gifted it to him. His word against your dads.

[ercchry]

send email to douchebag from father "hey, remember when i lent you my truck when you were still married to my daughter? yeah im going to need that back"

wait for reply to the effect of "yeah, i sold that thing"

fwd to cops... wait for lulz

[TomcoPDR]

Douche bro in law definitely need to learn a lesson (considering there're law enforcement on this board, to be clear learning lessons doesn't necessarily mean illegal)

First douche face fucks the sis, then now ur dad. Not cool :thumbsdow Beyond shaming is required.

Yeah, if douche bro-law doesn't have a bill of sale (receipt) for buying the truck from dad. The conversation they had, could had been: "Ur honor, I told Steve he could use my truck to take some garbage to the dump, reno, then now I found out he sold the truck on me... black book is worth $xxx your honor"

[94boosted]

Originally posted by 300zxfairlday
he could have wrote a bill of sale from any random person signed it over to himself and got insurance/ registration.
Basically just a lesson learned , there is not much if anything that you can actually do. Its a verbal agreement which will never hold up in court becaus he could also say your dad gifted it to him. His word against your dads.

Essentially sold himself a vehicle from a non-existent person? Should be pretty easy to prove that it was false bill of sale.

Unless I'm missing something here it sounds like your dad is still the legal owner of the vehicle so I don't see what's stopping him from making a formal request to get the vehicle back, and when that fails call police and report the truck stolen. Onus will then be on the ex husband to prove he legally purchased and legally sold that truck :dunno:

[Masked Bandit]

If there was no bill of sale from your dad to the BIL, how did the BIL get it registered?

[TomcoPDR]

Originally posted by funkedelic2


That's correct. He never sold it to him on paper, so he just drove it without insurance and reg and then probably realized that he didn't want to pay for it and sold it himself, stealing the money.

I thought of the same idea to report it stolen, the only concern is that so much time has already passed.




Originally posted by Masked Bandit
If there was no bill of sale from your dad to the BIL, how did the BIL get it registered?


BIL is just pure douche, just straight drove it without insurance/reg. Then sold it on OP's dad and kept the $$.

Hope OP sister got half the dude's assets and not debt.

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by J.M.
Call the cops and find out :dunno:

I'm willing to bet the cops will say its a private matter and won't do anything, because really it is. Small claims is the only course of action now.

[J.M.]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok


I'm willing to bet the cops will say its a private matter and won't do anything, because really it is. Small claims is the only course of action now.

Technically it's a "stolen" vehicle now imo.. unless there's more to the story

[funkedelic2]

Nope. That's all there is to it really. I Heard that the guy that he sold the truck to wanted to kick his ass. Whether that's because its not insurable, or because it was beat to shit, I'm not entirely sure of. I know he took that truck mudding and probably broke things on it.

I'm thinking first we will see what the police say and go from there.

[Kloubek]

This is actually a really tough situation, only because a 3rd party is now involved.

Here's how I see it, and I'm not sure which would be legally binding. Regardless, I think it is a small claims court and I'm not sure the cops would want to get too involved.

Scenario 1:
Interest in the truck was transferred to the ex. Since there is no written agreement, a court can only rule this was done by verbal agreement. The ex will say (of course) it was given to him, and your father will say it was agreed at $3000. If there was no witness to the agreement, it is up to the judge to decide who is telling the truth. Either way - your father was COMPLETELY out to lunch transferring a vehicle without paperwork. That in itself almost makes me believe we're not getting all the story or something.

Scenario 2:
If a court decides there was no actual contract to transfer interest in the vehicle at all because there is no proof either way, then in essence, the ex will have stolen the vehicle. In that case, perhaps the cops would have more of an interest if there was a court ruling as such.

Of course, this is all how *I* see it. I really don't know the law in this case.

[FraserB]

I'd do what was suggested above. Email, text or call and record the request to return the truck that was lent to the ex. When he can't produce it, offer him the choice to purchase it or involve the police/court.

All this of course assumes there is no bill of sale and if he faked one, you could prove it was fake.

[funkedelic2]

Originally posted by Kloubek

Either way - your father was COMPLETELY out to lunch transferring a vehicle without paperwork. That in itself almost makes me believe we're not getting all the story or something. [/B]

I didn't go into specific details, but I was actually present at the time my dad originally bought the truck from the original owner. I actually signed as a witness.

My dad was basically looking for a cheaper older truck and my ex brother in law suggested that he buy a good deal he came across on kijiji. I decided to go along for the trip (It was a good hours drive) and when we got there, we could see that the body wasn't in good shape but it checked out mechanically. We figured that the way it looked wasn't a big deal, as it would just be used occasionally for dump runs, ect.

Knowing my dad and what a perfectionist he is, he started to have buyer remorse when we got a good look at this thing in the day. The whole time, my ex bro in law kept on saying how he "wished he had bought it" because it's exactly what he was looking for and he would gladly buy it off my dad if he didn't want to hold onto it.

At this point I wish I had talked my Dad out of it because it was apparent that my ex brother in law had found something to cater to his own tastes and didn't really listen to my dads preferences. He told my Dad that he would buy it, and that he could come and use it whenever he needed it, so he didn't have to worry about not having a truck to use when he needed it.

I felt shitty that my Dad ended up buying the thing by that point because it was pretty banged up and ugly looking for an '04 dodge ram. I told him if ex was willing to buy it and let him use it, that he should sell it to him. So that's what he ended up doing.

Their relationship was pretty good at this point. Ex was making really good money and I wasn't even made aware that money wasn't exchanged until the truck was later resold. After he didn't pay I started getting on his ass about It and he just didn't end up ever coming through on his word.

I understand my dad made a huge mistake, he realizes that as well. Ex ended up losing his job a few weeks after he took possession of the truck, and it all went down hill from there.

You can't reason with this guy, he's completely lost his mind and went nuts within the last year but I will try to do what was suggested. Like mentioned before, even if my dad can't get his money back, seeing him get charged with something would be a victory in its own right.

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by J.M.


Technically it's a "stolen" vehicle now imo.. unless there's more to the story

No, technically he owes the OP's father $3g for the truck, which is a civil matter. If you tell this story to any cop, starting with "Well I sold this guy my truck", I'm sure they'll agree.

It would only be theft it they agreed he could borrow it until he had the money.

[cancer man]

Ha Cops love this stuff..just call them and explain.
This happened to me about 3 years ago and they busted her ass.
I got the car back plus made her pay for the body damage.
To long of a story,this is over a beer talk.

[300zxfairlday]

getting a vehicle registered is not a big deal in alberta haha. You can write over a bill of sale on a napkin and its considered valid . They dont search to see if the names match previous registered owners or what not. Lots of people buy cars and then sell them on kijiji without ever registering them .... You think they include the bill of sale they got from whereever they got it from? You wont get the vehicle back because it is now in possession of someone else who probably has a bill of sale so the most you can do is take BIL to court .