Log Book Loans have taken our van, but we've never heard of them!

saver6

Could be a long one, sorry. There's a lot of different aspects to this...

Basically, Anglia bailiffs knocked on the door yesterday and told us we were not the legal owners of my husband's work van (self employed), that LBL were and there was outstanding finance on it so they were taking it. We'd never even heard of them! From what we managed to get out of them, a previous owner had £4500 owed on it but it had been sold to us for £2300 back in February this year. We've since spent £1500 on a new head for it, so we're down a lot of money and have no van for my husband to do his work properly.

We had no option but to let them take the van as my husband's tools were in it and they said if we didn't hand over the keys they would simply break into it. We're absolutely devestated as it's just the latest thing in a long line of problems we've had recently. Feels like the last straw.

So basically after they left with the van, we looked over our paperwork. Turns out the receipt we got from the sale is from Mr X at Flat 6, 1 High Street, Windsor, but the V5 (which we now know is obviously a duplicate that had been applied for after the LBL was taken out) is in the name of Mr Z from Flat 15, 1 High Street, Windsor (er, exact details changed obviously). Hmmm, can you see anything fishy about that...? We had not received both bits of paper at the same time, so it's only now looking at them side by side we can see the discrepancy. Especially when you consider that we bought the van on 25th Feb, but the V5 says the previous owner had bought it himself only 2 weeks previous to that...

So having gone straight down the CAB yesterday, we will now be pursuing a small claims from Mr X, whom we physically met with to buy the van. We know that at the end of the line we are likely to win but we also know we'll never see a penny of the money in reality. But I have prinicples and simply cannot take this lying down.

HOWEVER, when we popped by the solicitors for a quick chat after that, he advised us that we should also go to the police to report the fraud, as essentially the van was sold to us by someone who didn't own it - and that's even without the whole LBL-being-the-owners line. Police are taking us seriously and will be taking a statement from hubby later today.

It all feels so utterly utterly wrong that we are the innocent party and yet WE will lose out on a hell of a lot of money (especially as we paid with hubby's redundancy money to make this new start, and it's all been ripped away...). Not to mention loss of earnings for hubby as some of his tools are too large to lug about it my little car, which essentially means he may have to turn jobs away.

Has anyone encountered a case like this before? Is there any way of stopping the auction of the van? Is there anything else I can do? Would I be advisable to actually employ a solicitor rather than tackle the small claims myself? We just don't have the cash for legal help, but I don't think we qualify for legal aid either. I'm on a reduced wage at the moment so we simply haven't got any money to pay for a solicitor ourselves...

We both feels at a complete and utter loss lately, this is almost ready to break us both financially and emotionally. :mad:

mrcow

Do you have legal protection cover on your house insurance?

It's often added to policies - could be worth looking into?

saver6

Good thinking Mr Cow, I'll look on my policy docs as soon as I get home tonight! Thanks

ILW

Did you actually go into the property listed on the the v% and receipt, or was the transaction all carried out in the street?

saver6

Into the property listed on the receipt (we hadn't seen the V5 until afterwards). They were flats, but hubby definitely went in, met the wife and kids and everything. Although the fact he didn't have the V5 on him we are now smacking ourselves over how we didn't spot a problem. We just needed a van, and this one was the best going for the money we had, even had 12 months fresh tax. Which 2 months later we were told by the DVLA was no longer valid as the person who paid's cheque had bounced but because we owned (!) the van we were now liable. We had to take that one up the jacksy. We have taken the tax disc out though and will be claiming as much back of that as we can.

saver6

UPDATE: Unfortunately, although the copper who came round last night seemed very interested in talking to hubby about the fraud charges against the seller, the one who turned up today when he was in was a different one and said that it is NOT a criminal matter as is it just "selling by underhand tactics" or some such rubbish. I don't get that... You hear of scorned women selling their husband's car behind their back only to end up having to get it returned because it was unenforceable, so how is this different?

Snakeeyes21

Did you do a HPI check when you bought it?
If you did and the owner showed as mr x when infact the owner was logbook loans, you should be covered with them, they guarantee their information is correct at the time of the Hpi. If it wasnt you can make a claim against them.

Xaviera

This is why you MUST do an HPI check when you buy a new/used car, didn't you think you needed one?

Small claims should sort it, but I hope you removed all your personal property from the van as you may not see it back!

ALIBOBSY

Even the HPI check may not have shown LBL. There is a lot about them on other forums (have a look over on the consumer action group). They use some very dodgy tactics and work in a very grey area of the law.
Basically they give sub prime loans at HUGE interest rates "secured" against your exsisting car. They imediately jump on to any non payment to "grab" the car and have used bully boy tactics against vunerable people in the past. They insist there contract allows them to take the car without going to court first, but many have argued this to be an unfair/unlawful contract. I have seen cases where people have taken them to court and won against them. Sometimes they note a HP interest with the courts, sometimes not-so a HPI check may not have helped.

However all of this is a longwinded and costly way to get money back and I assume can only be done by the original debtor. As you say you can only pursue the seller who need to pursue their seller who could pursue LBL.

There has already been complaints to the OFT about this companies tactics, so it may be worth complaining to them. This sort of "loan", like the payday loans wants banning asap.

Ever sympathy.

good luck
ali x

saver6

We used the text service HPI check which came back clear. Annoyingly we do a full HPI check on EVERY car we've ever bought. Except this one. Effing sod's law. But even the copper told me last night that a full HPI check might not come back with this type of finance listed as the type of company is so dodgy. Still, lessons learned and all that.

We definitely have all our stuff out of it. Except the wood ply lining we paid for and the new engine head lol.

Our issue is not with LBL or the bailiffs. After all, if someone is silly or desperate enough to get involved with 400% APRs etc, then to be fair, they can't have expected the company to exactly be a moral or kindly one. Our issue is with the person who sold it to us, who apparently didn't even own it, and it certainly sounds like a scam or fraud of some kind and I can't stand the ideas of them getting away with it.

dukey

The bailiffs shouldn't have threatened to break into it. Sounds very threatening to me...I'd report them to the SIA.

Good luck on getting the van/ money back.