DIYbanter - View Single Post - Vehicle ownership and changing vehicle registered keeper

The Natural Philosopher

wrote:
On 24 Apr, 15:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
PM wrote:
Here's the situation:
Miss A and Mr B have lived together for around 12 years.
A couple of years ago they borrowed £5k from Miss A's parents to buy a car.
This was a verbal agreement; none of the money has been paid back. This is a
major bone of contention - the parents want their money. It is unknown
whether there is a receipt for the car.
The car is registered in Mr B's nameand was used by Mr B as the family car.
Miss A does not drive.
Recently the relationship between Miss A and Mr B broke down, to the extent
that Mr B no longer lives with Miss A. There is a huge amount of bad feeling
on both sides, and for the purposes of this post let's assume a
reconciliation won't happen.
Mr B has said he is going to keep the car. Miss A's parents want it back as
part payment for the debt due. The car is at Miss A's house and she holds
the V5 and one of the two sets of keys.
Who owns the vehicle?
Miss A's parents actually.

Doubt that very much. Much more likely that Miss A and Mr B jointly
own the car.

If Miss A's parents can prove they paid the money for it - say by showing a
bank withdrawal for the £5k at the time the car was bought - can they claim
ownership?
Yes.

No, the loan is not a secured loan; only if they successfully sued for
the loan repayment might there come any issue with forcing him to sell
assets to satisfy the judgement.

what loan? they can easily say that they bought the car for him but
retained ownership.

With no documentation to the contrary, its a matter of interpretaion.

Can the vehicle's registered keeper be re-assigned to be either Miss A or
Miss A's parents - none of whom drive - without the consent of Mr B?
Yes. I think so.

Not lawfully, no - the existing registered keeper has to sign over the
registered keeper status.

None of the family are the kind of people to sit down and discuss things
rationally.
well the easy option here is that someone takes miss A's keys and drives
the vehicle away.

She sells it and signs the registration docs.

Practically, this might work. Legally, not though as she would be
committing a fraud by pretending to be the registered keeper (when she
is in fact not the registered keeper, just the joint owner).

another way is to phone up DVLC and get the address details changed and
new registration sent, and then sign that from the new address.

Or simply sell the car and dont notify the DVLC.

This puts all the burden on r B to prove it is his. He only has
registration document, and that is not a legally binding ting.

My summary would be:-
A and B are joint owners of the car.
B is the registered keeper, but that is a position which gives
obligations to the keeper, not rights of ownership
A and B are probably both liable for the loan to be repaid (if a
contractual loan exists - but where is the consideration? Mum and Dad
agreed to loan cash (consideration) in return for what? Potentially a
promise of repayment, but that may not have existed)

So A owes £2500 and owns an asset of £1000. But the loan is unlikely
to be required to be repaid, so she owns an asset worth £1000
B owes £2500 (which parents want repaid) and owns an asset of £1000.

B's maximum exposure is therefore £2500, but parents should accept
£1500 plus the title to the car being gifted to A.

Matt
I say take the car away and tell B that he isn't going to have use of
it, and its not his. And give him the option of 'sign it away for 500 or
dont sign and get nothing'