The classic Christmas movie “Deck the Halls” features a scene where Matthew Broderick’s character is gifted a car from his rival, a car dealership owner played by Danny Devito. Driving it around for a day Broderick is surprised to learn that not only is it not a gift, he’s expected to pay the dealership for the entire car’s price by the end of the day or else he’s going to be arrested for theft. Confronting DeVito he learns that DeVito forged his signature to the cars deed and is demanding full payment of the car immediately, but is willing to waive the price if he challenges him to a wacky sitcom showdown.
Now, two things I’m confused by.
Can you actually be forced to suddenly 100% pay off a car from a dealer? What would happen if you just never bothered to deal with long term financing? Would they just repossess the car or could they try to force you to pay it all off?
Can you actually be arrested for not fully paying off the car?
1)Well, if you said you pay in full, today (cash or your own financing) and then drove off with the car without paying, I’d guess it’s a civil matter and the dealership would have to take you to court. If you hold the title to the car, and there’s no lien holder, no one can repossess it.
2)Same as one. Again, in this situation it sounds like a civil matter to be addressed by the courts.
I haven’t seen the movie, but it sounds like the criminal would be DeVito for forging the signature. It wouldn’t surprise me if the courts awarded the car to Broderick and referred Devito to the DA for criminal charges. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the courts told Broderick to return the car and Devito to stop attempting to collect on it and they can both go their separate ways.
I know this is fiction, but I have to assume any car dealer (and most regular people) would know enough not to take a free car without a title and a bill of sale that assures the new owner that it’s paid in full.
What would happen if you just never bothered to deal with long-term financing is that the dealer wouldn’t have signed the title over to you or given you possession of the car until you paid , end of story. But since I never saw this movie, I looked it up - and it seems your memory is a little off. Apparently the forgery was not on the title- Buddy forged Steve’s signature on the car loan, so the loan is in Steve’s name. And if the loan is supposed to be due by the end of the day that’s just nonsense unless DeVito is supposed supposed to be the lender as well as the car dealer/salesman (which would be ridiculous itself) .
If you just drive a car away from a dealership, you can be charged with theft.
If you drive a car away from a dealership, without the intention of paying, you can be charged with theft.
If you stole a car by signing some papers, and then just drove away, you could perhaps be charged with theft. It may be more difficult to prove theft, but I think that
Car dealers are used to people trying to steal cars. So are the police and the courts. There may be a standard way of dealing with this.
Cars are different anyway. Driving a car without permission is ‘car theft’, which isn’t the same as other kinds of theft. If Steve doesn’t have title to the car, and Buddy isn’t letting him drive it, it’s ‘car theft’.
Not really. I read about someone who used that app where you rent your car short term to people (like Avis meets Uber?). The person never brought it back. The police basically said “you gave him the keys and let him take it. It’s a civil matter.” Of course, someone who forges signatures probably isn’t above lying and saying “he took it without permission” but then would have to explain why he waited a day to report it. And with two versions, and nobody to vouch for either version - the least criminal wins, usually. He said, he said.
Not paying a loan? Civil matter. Arguing loan documents are invalid? Civil matter. We don’t have debtors prison nowadays.
Plus if A is a used car dealer in a checkered jacket and B is someone without a history of criminal behaviour - I don’t think the police will arrest him on A’s say so as a car thief.
Just adding - the dealer would have to provide some very convincing proof the person intended to commit fraud and theft, as opposed to missing the deadline for what may be a perfectly plausible reason, or even because they are hopelessly undependable. People return rental cars late all the time.
Besides - you can’t have it both ways - “he stole the car, which is mine”, and “he owes for the car, which he bought but hasn’t made payments”. the loan agreement is evidence that the transaction was not theft. Failure to pay a loan is a civil matter - you’d need pretty convincing evidence to show it was fraud. Even more, if the buyer is known to the seller, details like fraudulent details on the application (“that’s not how big your income is, that’s not your real name”) would be harder to explain to the police as evidence of fraud. Heck, you can be a very prominent VIP and fail to pay your debts and then tie up the whole transaction in court for years with claims that things were not correct - with no repercussions. “That wasn’t me signing the document” would be a lawsuit spanning months or years.
If you read the article, they aren’t going to jail because they owe money. They’re going to jail because they failed to appear in court. It’s not the same thing.
I did, and there wasn’t one account where the article even *claimed *people were “put in jail simply for owing a company money” as the headline states. Put in jail because they didn’t show up in court, yes the article mentioned that. Put in jail because they didn’t comply with a court ordered payment plan - mentioned that too. Threatened with jail if they didn’t pay the debt, yes. But not actually put in jail simply for owing the money.
I don’t understand.
Once the title (deed’ is for real estate) is signed over to you, you own the car. That is the proof of ownership that is required for insuring the vehicle, for registering it with the state, etc. That’s why when you purchase a vehicle, the seller doesn’t sign the title over to you until you have finished paying for it.
I suppose the seller could argue that the forged signature makes the title invalid. But when the seller himself did the forgery, I don’t know what a court would make of it. Seems an unrealistic situation. Good thing it’s a movie and not reality.
I guess I don’t really see how being put in jail for not complying with a court ordered payment plan is not being put in jail for owing money.
Even in the heyday of debtors’ prisons, I don’t think a lender could just show up at Sir Debtingtons’s door (or even Harry Ditchdigger’s door) and haul him away to Newgate; they still had to get a court involved first.
Yes, I’m sure a court had to be involved at some point. However, saying that someone was “put in jail simply for owing the money” would mean that they were jailed because they owed the money without any other complications such as violations of court orders - the company proved they owed the money and they went off to jail. It’s like saying that someone who violated a restraining order was “put in jail simply because they called their ex-girlfriend on the phone” - they wouldn’t have been jailed for calling the ex-girlfriend in the absence of the court order.
Also you have to agree to a court ordered payment plan, unlike a restraining order. The attraction is that the creditor may agree to receive less in return for you putting yourself in potential contempt of court if you don’t pay.
All in all there’s a pretty big asterisk on any statement equating court ordered payment plans to debtor’s prisons.
According to the report, people are being subject to court ordered payment plans pursuant to default judgments when they received no notice of the suit. It’s hard to say they agreed to it. Same response to you, Doreen.
You seem to think I’m defending the practice - I’m not. I’m just saying that it’s inaccurate to say they’re being jailed “simply for owing money” - and according to the ACLU report, some of those people received no notice of the suit because they moved. I understand why notifying a company you owe money to about your move wouldn’t be at the top of your “things to do” list - but it’s also kind of unreasonable to blame them for not notifying you if that happens.
I’d feel a lot more sorry for this guy if I heard how he notified the court that he couldn’t appear for the examination before he missed it. But I’m pretty sure the article would have mentioned it if he had , just like I’m sure it would have mentioned it if he was never notified.
Yes, usually in these articles that want to make a point, they omit key details. Presumably anyone with a passable lawyer could get their case looked at. I suspect someone who ends up doing decent amounts of time for contempt/failure to comply earned it - i.e. has decent money but simply chooses not to hand any over.
Looking around it’s clear that generally it is very poor people who can’t afford anything, let alone lawyers. And whether they show up to a hearing or not makes little difference if you have no money and no lawyer.
It makes a huge difference. Not showing up gets you thrown into jail (at least eventually).
It’s much much harder to get thrown in jail if you show up. Unless the debt you aren’t paying is restitution you agreed to pay to avoid going to jail in the first place.