Okay Hive, Ever Had Anyone Threaten Legal Action After Buying A Car From You?

The buyer should probably call 911 so the police can haul you away too.  Idiocracy was supposed to be a comedy, but now it’s prophecy.

If the BoS has gone "missing" and the seller refuses to sign the title, tell him you'll just go ahead and report the car stolen. There's no record of the transaction of the BoS is missing on the sellers end. I bet the BoS will turn up right quick.

I'm weary of dealing with people like that. PA is a notary state for transfer of vehicles. It's partly to ensure they get their tax money but the release of liability is done immediately.

Did the Bill of Sale say "As-Is" anywhere.  Was the car over 10 years old or has over 100,000 miles?  Wait, you're not a Dealership, doesn't matter.  Walk away, you went above and beyond by fixing it once.

Sold an old Cherokee to a kid once, he drove it away, two days later he calls wanting his money back!  Seems he pulled the heads for some reason and got in over his head.  My lawyer said not to worry about it.

Good luck, Dan

I'm in the "Well then go ahead and put on your big boy pants and file the suit." As someone else rightly said, once someone threatens a lawsuit, tell them all further contact will be through your attorney. That shuts up 99.9% of people.

That was one of the really fun things about working at State Farm as a Claim Rep, because we were actually compelled to say it, "I'm sorry sir/ma'am, we can no longer have further contact regarding your claim with State Farm, again here is your claim number and the phone number to our legal department. Have a nice day."

Also, this is why you do TWO copies of a bill of sale, and go to the DMV/Title Office or somewhere with a notary and pay the few bucks to have it notarized. 

Also, also, I would have never helped fix the car the first time. 

I actually had a guy try to strong arm me with a "lawyer" call over a car with a clearly documented bad engine. 

I offered to file it for him. And show up with my lawyer (didn't have one). My thoughts are that even if he wins, legal fees would be far more than the 800 he spent on the car.

Theres no lemon laws on private party in north Carolina. 

Hell, I had someone threaten legal action on me BEFORE they bought the car.

Let me be the Devil's advocate for a minute.  He has repaired the car once after the sale.  Would that set a precedent where he should repair it again.   It's like he really did give a warranty.    

I'm pretty sure I had someone threaten legal action when I was trying to buy a car from them... hard to tell, they were pretty excited, but when someone says "that's just surface rust" and you proceed to remove a chunk of the (very rusty) car and hand it to them they get pretty angry 

In Delaware, the bottom of the title is a detachable coupon that is removed at time of sale and mailed to the DMV by the seller.  The car is officially Not Your Problem as of the date that happens, even if the buyer never transfers it, uses it to rob a bank, whatever.

irish44j said:

That said, they could go rob a bank with the car and pin it on you, since you still own it technically ;)

 

Or they get caught driving it with invalid plates and it gets impounded and you have too explain too the local police department that the title was signed over too them and notarized per Ohio law. It was a good time.

spitfirebill said:

Let me be the Devil's advocate for a minute.  He has repaired the car once after the sale.  Would that set a precedent where he should repair it again.   It's like he really did give a warranty.    

This is a valid point. They traveled at least a couple hours to pick it up, so when the first mechanical issue happened I wanted to help them out so they could get back home safely. What was a nice gesture has now been spun to be "so convenient" that I was able to fix it, surely I must have known. Truth is, it was a bad coil, no way to know those are going bad, but I Youtubed the DIY and since he had no tools locally I did it in my driveway.

I had the po-po come to my house asking about a motorcycle I sold once.  A couple from Kentucky came down and purchased a few months prior.  Apparently they never registered it, and it broke down or they left it abandoned in a state park somewhere in Kentucky.  Luckily I still had the buyer's contact # which I provided to the officer, and he went on his way.  

As far as OP, I'd let them file a lawsuit (if they can) and not worry about it.   I guess you could also call the non-emergency number for the local police/sheriff's department and put a report on file about it.  That at least starts a record of when they threatened legal action.  

Basically, since you're regularly dealing in selling cars, there is absolutely no implied warranty of merchantability whatsoever on the car so it doesn't matter if you said "as-is" on the bill of sale or not.  Lemon laws don't apply since that is applicable only to the manufacturer and to the first sale of a brand-new car.  Honestly, I don't think you've actually been threatened with legal action; you've had a blowhard with poor expectations who watches too much tv think that he can get his way if he says the magic word "lawsuit".  Once you have a letter in your hand that is on an attorney's letterhead THEN you've been threatened with legal action.  And unless you blatantly defrauded them in some fashion that they could prove, I doubt any attorney would want to bother with that because they bought a used car from a private party which means it came with all faults the moment they gave you money and you gave them the property and the executed title.  Assuming that the title you gave them is valid and proper for transfer and they have the property in their possession, you owe them absolutely nothing else.  Even if they went to start it after you did the paperwork and it fell apart into a thousand bits the only thing you'd owe them would be a bill to clean up the mess from their car.

I would, however, make sure that you went to your local whomever-does-vehicle-titling-and-registrations and find out what the process is to document that you no longer own the car in question.  Here in the Commonwealth, our county clerk has a form that can be filled out that lets them know that you are no longer the owner of the car which is independent of the new owner taking any action with the title.

I've been on the other end...kinda.   When I was 18, I bought a $500 1984 VW Rabbit Diesel with 385k miles from some good ole boy mechanics.  It was winter and when I got there to look at it, already dark.  Car was in the garage bay and warm, didn't think much of it.  Fired right up and drove okay, drove it home....wouldn't restart.  Found the airbox completely choked out with blowby.  Went back to talk to them and ask for my money back -- they told me to just give it a shot of ether and berkeley off. 

I asked them if that's what they did right before I showed up to test drive it.....and they literally chased me out of their garage with a breaker bar.

Lots of lessons learned.  Worth $500.  

(I drilled some holes in the airbox so that the blowby could leak safely to the ground and installed a hose to the cabin so I could give it a shot of ether without popping the hood.  Sold it for $500 a few months later.)

I wouldn't give this any more thought, unless it was a dumb kid...then maybe teach him a lesson about buyer beware...only use your words and not a breaker bar.  I literally just didn't know any better, maybe that's the case here?

Generally when someone threatens legal action I tell them, "I'm sorry you feel this way, but I am not in a position to help you. Please have your lawyer reach out to my lawyer or insurance company." Depends on the situation. The person really doesn't have any ground to stand on and when they do contact a lawyer to "sue" you the lawyer will tell them that they are wasting their time. 

Avoid admitting fault in any case and don't really converse with people who want to file legal action. You don't want to say the wrong thing.

We have this often at work when it comes to accidents just because the person sees us as big business and wants "easy" money.  

Unless the laws are odd in your state, youre fine.  

As suggested, I would immediately find out what you have to do to notify the state that the car was sold if you haven’t already. 

Surely there is something through your state’s dmv/bmv/etc that says private party used car sales are as-is.  Find it and send to them  

And before you tell them that any further contact needs to be in writing or through your lawyer, I’d let them know that they will be responsible for all of your legal and lawyer costs if they continue to pursue it.  

In reply to Floating Doc :

Yup, this is a good approach.  You could also mention that you want all future correspondence in writing and that all future contact will be forwarded to your attorney to handle.  If they actually file suit and you win, there are some situations where you can recoup legal costs (consult an actual lawyer on that one)...but just mentioning that possibility when you ask them to communicate by mail only may also help convince them they're being unreasonable.

The fee for filing a small claims suit in FL is somewhere between $200 to $300...high enough to make it not worth someone's trouble for small stuff.

Thanks for the replies everybody. It looks like I can use the Bill of Sale document posted earlier in the thread, but as a "Notice of Sale" that does not require the purchaser's signature. I have filled that out and will try to drop it off at the DMV in the morning. I don't have the full address of the purchaser, but hope that won't be a problem.

Just an update on this - Went to the local DMV this morning and filed a "Notice of Sale". Same form, but didn't need any purchaser info, just my info and the title #/VIN #.

They marked the title as "Sold" for me, no charge for it. Haven't heard anything back from the buyer, maybe he took my advice and fixed it quickly and easily, not that he'll ever admit it to me.

Anyways, learn from my lesson and ALWAYS DO A BILL OF SALE, as a buyer and a seller.

In reply to CobraSpdRH :

I picture on your cell phone would work as well...  

I once had some guy threaten to call the police on me because a set of cylinder heads I had sold him had the smog ports filled on them.  I was young and didn't feel like dealing with the issue, so I refunded their money and took them back.  Resold them that night to a guy for the same money and he never quibbled about them.

If that was me now, I'd have just ignored the first guy and let him waste his time over a set of $300 cylinder heads.  His emails were in ALL CAPS AND HE WAS REALLY MAD ALL THE TIME.  Seemed like a swell human being to be friends with.  

I really try to avoid the "this is what you should have done" comments. I appreciate that they are often the most useful comments in the thread, so I'll add this.

I tend to run my car's until they almost fall to dust, so when I sell a used car it's usually to the lower level buyer.

I have them meet me at the DMV office. I tell them they can have the car once the title is transferred.

No one has ever threatened to sue me, I must be living clean or something.  I have threatened others however, and I meant it. Other party always caved, I guess they knew they were in the wrong. Again, must be doing something right. 

I sell everything with a tail light warranty, when i can no longer see the tail lights the warranty is expired.

5/50 Warranty

5 minutes or 50 feet