Be Excellent To Each Other

Someone I know has a situation where they took out a loan to pay for a car as a joint loan in two names.

One person has now taken the car, disappeared and is not paying for it anymore. Is there any way for the person who doesn't have the car now to not have to pay for it?

Loan from the bank, or a loan against the car?

I'd tell your friend to call the CAB, to begin with.

How else are they going to get around now they have no car?

Sadly I think they're jointly liable, which means they're both liable for the full amount. If they can't get it from one party, they'll go after the other.

Yeah the smallprint to watch out for is "jointly and severally liable".

On the other hand if the other party has taken the car without consent, it's a police matter, not a CAB one.

If it's jointly owned, then the other person has effectively stolen the car. Would insurance cover it?

I believe it was a consolodation loan that is the issue which also was involved in paying for the car.

Update: The car appears to be only in his name as he didn't allow her to get her name onto it. So it's sounding like she's screwed.

Also there is a court order on the guy saying he's got to pay but he's not. Unfortunately no one knows where he is (except I've just traced him, a bit).

Not so. She's got an equitable interest in whatever percentage of the car if she committed to the purchase price.
Rowe v Prance [1999] "our boat"

Rogues have a habit of doing that.

Obviously, this wont help in getting car back.

Except the police can circulate the reg across different forces, at least, and he won't be able to sell it to anyone who does any kind of checks at all (outstanding finance and it'll flag up as of interest if she reports it).

Tell her to cancel the tax disc and register it SORN as well, for additional "making it easy for the police" shits and giggles. If he's changed the registered address with the DVLA (to a valid one, obv), the police will be able to find him easily anyway, otherwise she'll be able to send a letter.

He won't know anything about it until he's being chased by a policeman for driving untaxed (and therefore without insurance, SLAMMAR! - and possibly CRUSHAR! unfortunately, but then he's committed huge fraud/theft here so she'll be able to recover all costs and that from him anyway)

We're assuming of course he hasn't sold it already..

Whose name is on the V5?

The V5? I'm not entirely sure what that is. Is it like the license thingy? The only name that has ever been associated with it in the past is his, the current name is unknown as it hasn't been checked. (Considering she's paying a lawyer to do this sort of thing, they aren't doing a very good job)

The V5 is the vehicle registration document - basically who the car belongs to.

It's the registered keeper of the vehicle, not who it belongs to.

If Peter and Jane put £5k up each for a car, and Peter's name goes on the V5, explaining to jane that it's due to him having a driving licence, whatever, and it's "our car", then Jane retains a 50% share of the car when it comes to flogging it.

Not really, it is who the car is registered to, not who owns the car..

The funny car system in this country..

But in terms of registering it SORN, as suggested above, only the person named on the V5 can do that.

So A and B take out a loan together to buy a car and some other stuff.
A legs it, and stops paying the instalments.
B thinks they are liable for the remaining balance
B takes A to court over the half of the balance, wins £x/2 form him to pay off the balance
B is still left with the instalments to pay with the remainder going from A to B to loan company
A hasn't paid B and has disappeared.

That's about the sum of things. Yes. He's also supposed to be paying some child support but isn't. Obv.

Then what myp and kalmar said, if that's the case. I wouldn't have thought that there would be anything more to do, but I'd still see a proper lawyer over it. If he's not paid now, it's unlikely he will in the future, and if he's happy to skittle off, then it's also highly likely he'll have gotten shot of the car for cash, fastest.

Can she call the loan firm, explain it all, and try to renegotiate terms? they probably won't but you never get anything without asking, I suppose.

It's time to track the car down and steal it back.

GOT TRUCK?

Clearly time to take him to the cleaners over that then. The CSA can be pretty effective when they're not being utterly useless.

Why yes, yes I do

Although Nirejhenge's friend also probably has a spare set of keys.

I'll believe that when it happens. £45 I've had in 12 years for Sam. Supposed to be £30 a week. Hmm.

A friend of mine allowed her friend to use her credit card to buy a car, but she's stopped paying the balance, I suppose this is along the same lines really (Liabilty wise I mean).

"Utterly useless" in that case then. They were very effective in the case of my ex's-ex though.

They were useless for my mum. My Dad, being a financial advisor, managed to convince them he was only earning £50 a week, somehow, the cunt.

Does that make them your friend? I'm confused.

I've managed to track down where he was working in 2006. Whether he's still there or not I don't know, but it's a lead. He's also got a new wifey now and another kid.

How recent was the car disappearing incident then?

Old Man Afterthought has a friend who is a private detective. Could get one of them to track him down, serve him with papers and end up with a lien against their property, or something. Maybe, if that's possible.

I think he ran off originally about 6 years ago. They've been trying to track him down (very poorly it seems) ever since.

But has only recently nicked the car? Or what?

Oh. This could cause a problem, as there's a 6 year cut off point for things.

However, if something has been done, then the clock starts ticking again, as far as I understand it.

Hah. I suppose it does, now.

Oh. I thought it was very recent. Scratch my ideas then.

The problems with demands are very recent but the car has been missing as long as he has.

Might seem a daft question, why was this not done 6 years ago?

Well, quite. The bloody thing must be almost paid for by now. Water under the bridge a bit, isn't it?

Well not quite. No money has been paid on the loan since it was taken out I believe. I only found out about this situation today however so I don't know absolutely everything.

What I've worked out is:
Things finally came to a head this monday when the debt collection people were threatening to take everything that she owns to pay for the debt. The lawyer has been trying to track down this guy for quite a few years and hasn't got as close as I have in 30 minutes today.