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My car sold by garage without my consent

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  • My car sold by garage without my consent

    Hi all; Here's a tricky one for you!

    It's a long story which I'll shorten - Back in year 2000 my Jaguar car went into a garage for restoration which the owner said would cost £400 and take two weeks - since then the garage has kept saying what I've paid isn't enough and I'll need to pay more to get it back on the road, so I'd pay more money, then about 6 months later be told it actually needs more money spending on it so I'd pay more money and about 6 months later the same thing would happen again so I kept paying. It came to a bit of head in Feb 2006 when I asked him how much it would cost to finish it off and he quoted me £4000 so I paid him £4000 in the space of 4 weeks. By May the car had not been finished so I asked for it back as it was and his reply was that It owed him storage money so I couldn't have it back. In August my dad died abroad and I asked for the car back as someone would buy it off me as it was so I could use the money to possibly get my fathers body back and he still refused and walked off laughing saying he had his own problems. During this time the car 'storage' consisted of keeping it outside on farmland under a tarpaulin.
    Over the next two years I kept asking when it would be finished and he told me it was in storage, when I asked to see it I got told I couldn't but it would look really nice when it was finished.

    By October 2008 I was told by my best mate that he'd seen some really dodgy looking Jaguar garage near his girlfriends - So I drove down to where my car was to find the garage had gone! My mate said "it's not here, it's further down the road" and about 5 miles down the road I found it, the garage owner had moved without telling me. At this point I probably done something I shouldn't have - I put a page up on the internet warning people to be wary of him going on what had happened to my car but I took it down about a week later after thinking about it and then rang the garage owner up and told him I'd report my car stolen as I hadn't seen my car for two years and he then agreed for me to see it and admitted he'd moved address it. After showing it was still in existence I then paid another £1250 over 3 months (from November 2008 to Feb 2009) but every time I saw the car it didn't look any different - he pointed out twice how he'd changed the spark plugs etc and nothing had happened. I walked off in disgust after telling it need to be ready as I need it for commuting to work.

    In October 2009 the garage owner rang me up ranting down the phone as he'd been told by a business partner about the internet page I put up - turns out it was still floating around the internet and he basically intimidated me down the phone into taking it off, even though I already had (it was cached by google somehow!).

    Now this is the interesting bit - I haven't heard from him since 2009 and on the 11th Feb I got a letter from DVLA saying someone had applied to be the registered keeper of my car. I called DVLA who where as unhelpful as always so I went to local police who advised me to contact ring the garage owner while I was in the police station but both his phone numbers had been cut off so the police said they'd treat it as a stolen car. I went home, done some research around the internet and I've found why I haven't heard from the garage owner - back in 2013 he was jailed for 8 years for drug smuggling!!

    Now the police officer dealing with it has said he'll do everything he can to get my car back but he seemed concerned that due to the amount of time I've been waiting for my car back it might become a civil case if he cannot prove criminal intent; I pointed out I was actually quite scared of the guy as he said one more than one occasion he knew a few nasty people and his incarceration proves that. Does anyone know where I stand with this? Aside from the money I paid for the work done on my jaguar that garage also sold me another car for £1200 while I was waiting for it to be finished off as I needed transport to work plus I've since had to purchase other cars for commuting to work, in total the amount I've spent is around £14,500 odd. Sadly I never got anything in writing from him about how much it would cost to get my car back on the road but I do still have my bank statements as luckily I paid most of it with cheques.

    The garage in question changed name since 2009 and I guess was shut down after he was jailed (it's all boarded up as of Feb 2015) so I've no idea where my car is. The police officer in question is back on shift on 19th so by then he'll hopefully have found out where my car is or what might have happened to it. I guess I cannot just go and take it back myself if I find out where it is - mainly as there was only ever 1 set of keys for it!

    Timbo
    Last edited by Thanetman; 16th February 2015, 14:54:PM.
    Tags: car, stolen

  • #2
    Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

    This all seems very odd and at the end of the day you may have to chalk it down to experience.

    If the police can find it and you can prove ownership then there is no reason why you can't recover it. You would probably have to pay someone to recover it and then, I believe, you can have the locks changed. I presume the DVLA have not registered a new owner/keeper?

    You don't come out of the tale very well though, what sort of condition was it in that £400 would pay for a restoration? How could you possibly let the whole thing drag on for 15 years?

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

      Well I didn't know any different - I paid £1000 for it in 1998 and spent a year driving it about before I found out the underneath was rotten. The garage left a card on the windscreen when I was parked up so I rang them, explained what was wrong with the car and then he said it'd cost £400 to fix it. Having never owned a Jaguar before I didn't know otherwise. Like I said he knew a lot of dodgy people and I got the impression from him that if I went to a lawyer to get my car back I'd never see it again. I've redone the post and explained a bit more.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

        OK, the clarification helps explain a bit, but still, 15 years.

        I think your best hope is that the police will find it, but I don't think they will look very hard - probably the best they will do is flag its registration and hope that an ANPR nabs if someone is indeed driving it.

        As I said, you may well end up having to put this down to experience.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

          Ok well at least I'll get closure. That guy had about 100 other cars in his garage so I'd have thought the cops might want to find those as well as mine. As I had the threat of losing my car if I stopped paying him I didn't know what else to do. His gang got a total of 60 years so shows the sort of person he was.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

            What did the DVLA actually say, and have they reregistered to the new de facto keeper?
            They obviously have an address for the current keeper which the police can access.Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulation 2002provides for the release of information from DVLA’s vehicle register to the police.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

              Originally posted by des8 View Post
              What did the DVLA actually say, and have they reregistered to the new de facto keeper?
              They obviously have an address for the current keeper which the police can access.Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulation 2002provides for the release of information from DVLA’s vehicle register to the police.
              I did ask that in post 2. As OP did not respond I have made a presumption that this line of enquiry is no use.

              I can't imagine that the police would not have accessed the DVLA database as their first line of enquiry?

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                The DVLA letter says that someone has applied to be the registered keeper and I had two weeks to contact them if I still owned the car.

                When I rang DVLA the lady who answered asked if I had the car in my posession (my reply was no) and that the cops we're treating it as a stolen car. Her reply "no the police won't do that even if it's only been a year so I can't believe they said that"
                My reply "well i've just been to the police station, here is the incident number (no crime number as the incident room hadn't got back to me)"
                DVLA women "well I can't see that being the case, I need a crime number"

                So I called 101 who put me through to the incident room who took all the details and gave me a crime number and passed it onto the police station concerned. The officer dealing with was on a night shift from Friday to Sunday so he had to deal with the weekend drunks but he has contacted dvla and soca and he will let me know on Thursday when he's back on shift.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                  DVLA letter states I have two weeks from 11th Feb to contact them or they'll issue a new V5 to the person who applied for it - although confusingly the lady at DVLA told me it would mean a new registered keeper but I was still the cars owner???

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                    So wait and see what the constabulary say before writing (signed for) to DVLA.

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                    • #11
                      Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                      Cheers Des8, i'll sit tight until then. I've still got the recepit from the previous owner 16 years ago which may or may not help.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                        Originally posted by Thanetman View Post
                        Cheers Des8, i'll sit tight until then. I've still got the recepit from the previous owner 16 years ago which may or may not help.
                        The officer dealing with it is trying to find out where it is and can't disclose to me what he's found out, could be a bit complicated so got to wait it out.

                        Another point - the car had a private plate, do I have a right to reclaim or transfer that as it was mine?

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                          Now you have a crime number I believe the DVLA should freeze the new keeper's application.
                          Phone DVLA confirming stolen status with crime number, and then write confirming it (signed for as DVLA have a record for not receiving letters and phone calls).

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                            Originally posted by des8 View Post
                            Now you have a crime number I believe the DVLA should freeze the new keeper's application.
                            Phone DVLA confirming stolen status with crime number, and then write confirming it (signed for as DVLA have a record for not receiving letters and phone calls).
                            Cheers des8, phoned DVLA with crime number and letter is already done and I'll send it recorded tomorrow once post office is open.

                            The DVLA said they'd 'open a case' but what does that mean as they didn't explain that on the phone?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: My car sold by garage without my consent

                              Originally posted by Thanetman View Post
                              Cheers des8, phoned DVLA with crime number and letter is already done and I'll send it recorded tomorrow once post office is open.

                              The DVLA said they'd 'open a case' but what does that mean as they didn't explain that on the phone?
                              Right some good news - the police have located by car! Turns out it was the (presumably now ex) partner of the garage owner who was trying to register it in her name as she has taken over the business and is working her way through all the cars in the garage by tracing/restoring/selling off the cars in that garage. Now the police have given me her phone number (but not her address) and told me to call her as she seems quite a reasonable person to deal with and to make arrangements about the car but the police have mentioned she was told by her ex husbands brother that the car owes storage money - which is the same line the garage owner kept spinning me all those years to stop me taking the car back. Now according to the police office who actually found my car it's covered in dust, the inside is terrible and has patches of bodywork to sort out. Can they charge me storage for it if it hasn't been kept in a reasonable state?

                              Tim

                              Comment

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