squelch
Imola
- Joined
- 5 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 779
Captain Lockheed said:What is the legal position here?
If a dealer D takes a car on SOR from seller S and then sells it to buyer B. Takes B's money, but doesn't pay seller S, who owns the car?
As usual it all depends on the T's&C's in the contract signed by the owner / seller of the car and the dealer (although I think often an SOR sale is pretty much just done on a verbal agreement / handshake). The law states that you cannot sell something that is not yours to sell so, in the absence of a written agreement relinquishing ownership of the vehicle to the dealer, and since the original owner has been given no consideration (payment) for his car, he still owns it. Thus, he would have the right to go and repossess / retrieve it (if he knew where it was) and the unfortunate buyer would have to seek recourse / refund from the dealer. And as we all know, the V5 is not proof of ownership, so just because the dealer has sent off the V5 it does not give the new "owner" legal possession of the vehicle. It would probably be a ball ache getting the V5 back from DVLA though, but provided there is enough evidence they ought to support.
I think if I ever used the SOR route, I would retain the spare key until I'd been paid, possibly put a tracker in the car and if the Gmund scenario happened, report to the police that it'd been stolen (by Gmund).