Garage refusing to return car after compensation awarded

[sohar25]

Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the site. I am very grateful that there are people prepared to give free advice.
The background.
I and my daughter were in a loose arangement with a garage owner. I found cars that had faults, but were saleable. The garage owner brought them up to retail standard. Then my daughter and I sold them. Net profits were split equally three ways after all bills had been paid. The garage owner abandoned one faulty car, with the dashboard removed and the ABS wiring broken into. The car became undrivable. After a long time trying to get him to sort it, I sued him for the amount that the car had cost me. The partnership collapsed. I won the court case, which I conducted myself. However, the Judge accepted his solicitor's argument that I could have mitigated my loss by removing the car at anytime from the garage for repair elsewhere. So the Judge only awarded me two thirds of my financial loss.
Now, to mitigate my one third loss I thought I would get the car back from the garage and have it repaired, or break it, or sell for scrap. I sent the garage an email to request that they position the car ready for collection by a recovery truck. His solicitor has replied stating that the car is not going to be released back to me quoting three reasons,

1) I didn't request the return of the car as part of my MCOL claim. They state I should have.
2) As I have been fully compensated for the car, I am not entitled to it back. ( ignoring that I only got 2/3rds and I thought I was still the legal owner)
3) My follow up threat to issue a further claim for my 1/3rd loss if they will not give me the car back is prohibited by the Henderson v Henderson precedent.

My question is
Are they right that I have forfeited any claim to the car?

I would be grateful for your opinion on this issue.
Many thanks

[R0b]

Hello

Difficult to help you without actually knowing what your particulars of claim stated.

If I think what you are suggesting then the answer is no you don't get to legally own the car, that's what the compensation is for; it would be in lieu of ownership of the car. If you wanted the return of the car then the solicitor is right and you should have asked for it in your claim, which of course would have increase the fees you paid.

The Henderson v Henderson principle I assume the solicitor refers to is that you cannot bring a fresh claim where it should have been dealt with in the original claim.

So from the sound of things, the solicitor appears to be correct based on what you have said.