Innocent purchase of a stolen vehicle

neilmcl

OP, what sort of investigations are the Police doing. Are the investigating the garage for example? Have you actually spoken to them since they took the car away.

verityboo

Have you contacted the garage that sold you the car?

My first car was an old mini which I purchased from a dealer. I kept it for 4 years before trading it in for a new car. A year later the garage contacted me as the new owner of the Mini had been stopped by the police and the car taken as it was a stolen car. The garage wanted to know about my ownership and I gave them a copy of the original sales invoice from the garage I bought it from. They were happy that their insurance would pay out as obviously they would have to refund the new owners

houseofwon

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Are you sure they were proper policemen?

you said they returned it to the person who reported it stolen, but unless it's only just been reported stolen then it'd belong to the insurance company as the previous owner has been paid out.

I've been in contact with the police regarding this so I'm sure it was the police that recovered the vehicle. As I said, short of recovering the vehicle from my possession, the police have been very unhelpful so I cannot confirm the original owners circumstances or how it was stolen and why it was reported stolen after 4 months of me owning it.

i mean that until you discovered the car was stolen you were happy to pay the costs you mentioned so they were expenses you'd have paid whether the car was stolen or not... so they may not be refundable.

Perhaps. I would prefer to not have to go to court to get my money back, so I'm trying to draw together ideas how I could prompt the garage to consider out of court settlement to avoid rising costs on their part and I wonder if I would be able to lay incidental costs in obtaining the vehicle on the garage? what if I did need to go to court. If I were successful in court would the garage become liable for my legal costs?

rev_henry

You didn't do the HPI check against the chassis number did you? You didn't even check the chassis number! Quite easy to swap number plates around, less so to change chassis numbers, and easier to spot ones that have been messed about with.

houseofwon

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

there was another thread very similar to this a couple of weeks ago.

I searched the forums before posting but found nothing? could you provide a link, please?

Thanks

houseofwon

rev_henry wrote: »

You didn't do the HPI check against the chassis number did you? You didn't even check the chassis number! Quite easy to swap number plates around, less so to change chassis numbers, and easier to spot ones that have been messed about with.

Infact I did. I did my check against the vehicle registration mark and the VIN and it came back with a clean bill of health.

As I've stated several times. The vehicle was NOT reported as stolen until 4 months into my ownership. As someone has already suggested it may be some form of fraud.

I don't know what else I could have done to check its status prior to buying it. As I've also stated the police did pull me over on a couple of occasions and nothing came back on their systems.

vaio

Obviously your claim (which should include all the other costs you mention) is against the garage that sold it to you, but, if your debit card is VISA then they are also responsible under s75 CCA which would probably be the easiest way to proceed.

vaio

I’d guess because of where the OP lives and where the car he wanted to buy was located?

Lum

Woody. wrote: »

Is there any reason you made an 800 mile round trip for this car?

Happens all the time, especially with rarer cars, or where it's an older car that is in particularly good condition.

It wasn't a Ford Anglia was it?

tyllwyd

Edited to say - woops, can see that I was wrong!