The lady he hit is fine. Apparently she didn’t have her lights on at night so that is a strike against her, although I doubt it will matter.
I’ve decided to just get a credit card advance or borrow the money from someone to get another car. No other option really, and yep, lesson learned. My brother says he’ll pay me back with his tax refund, but if he can’t pay his court fines (assuming they give him fines and not jail) wouldn’t the government garnish that anyway?
You’d have to prove there was a transfer of money. I guess it depends on if you have a bill of sale (which doesn’t actually change legal ownership, but at least proves you traded money for the car). If you have a bill of sale, the courts would probably recognze it. If it’s a casual sale without one (and I’ve bought cars from friends without them), I don’t think they would (or could) recognize any transfer of ownership.
Not necessarily. They could also let him pay in installments or let him work it off with community service.
If you can show that you deposited a certain amount into your bank account & claimed that it was from the “buyer”, then were able to show that the car in question was at the property of the buyer’s relative, I imagine someone would start listening.
My father once got a call from a judge in another state regarding a car we sold several years ago. Carmax bought it off of him, and then sold it to a dealer who sold it to someone else. Along the way, the title had never properly been transferred. It was never an issue for us after we explained the situation.
In Georgia, I don’t believe you have to have a title, just proof of sale (which could be a paper you printed off that both parties signed). Some cars exist without titles.
Consider yoursef educated. The statute is often called “joyriding” or “Unlawful Driving Away of an Automobile (UDAA)” here in the US. Much lower penalty than stealing a vehicle, especially if the person involved is a minor or it’s a first offense.
Don’t take a cash advance. The interest rate is higher than a purchase amount and you start accruing interest immediately. If you need to get cash off a card PM me and I have a legal solution
The proof of the sale is the title, the back of which the previous owner should have filled out when the OPer handed over the cash. This would have listed the new owner’s name, the amount he sold it for, and his signature transferring the title over.
Now if the new owner (the OPer) refuses to cooperate and claim ownership of the car, then I’m sure they’d have other ways to prove it, including the deposit of cash and the fact that the OPer’s brother was driving it.
The question remains what the insurance company of the lady he hit will do. When an uninsured teen hit my husband, we were made whole under our uninsured driver policy. However, almost 2 years later, my husband had to complete and sign an affidavit detailing the accident because our insurance company was suing the parents of the teenager to recuperate the money they paid out. The amount involved was less than $2k.
So it’s theoretical that, depending on the $ amount involved to repair the other lady’s car, her insurance company will go after the previous owner first (as they would be the title holder on record), then the OPer, then the OPer’s brother, then the OPer’s parents.
If you that’s that far-reaching, I recently read about a case where an injured party successfully sued a man’s company car insurance company for an accident that happened on personal time in his personal automobile. And it wasn’t the employee who was driving; it was his spouse. Wrap your brain around that one.
This is how it has worked in each such transaction I’m familiar with. It is then the responsibility of the buyer to exchange the signed old title for a new one in his/her name.
Since the previous owner has fully discharged his duties in the sale (by signing over his title) and has no control over the new owner’s actions in using the car or obtaining its new title, it’s hard to see how he can be liable for anything done with the car after the sale. If the insurance company calls seeking reimbursement, the simple statement that he was not the owner of the vehicle at the time of the accident should suffice.
I didn’t say he would be held liable. I said the insurance company would probably go after him first because he is still the owner of record. Once he proves that he sold it, they’ll go to the next person on the list, the OPer.
Being uninsured and being at fault in the accident are two different matters right? Is it at all conceivable that some sort of claim can be made against her?
Of course it’s conceivable as she was the owner of the car. Or, who is more at fault? The girl who bought a car, didn’t register it, didn’t get insurance on it and left the keys in a place where her uninsured brother could drive it…or the lady who was minding her own business and got hit? Why should that lady be left holding the bag?
That’s not to say that they will go after the OPer because she’s a poor student and no one, even insurance companies, can wring blood from a turnip. It would seem more likely, in my completely novice opinion, that they’d go after their parents.
The OP and her brother are legal adults. The OP owned the car, and the brother drove it and crashed it.
Under what legal principle could the insurance company “go after their parents”?
I didn’t see where she said her brother was over 18, just that he was her younger brother and she’s 22.
Besides, I’d like to see the legal principle that holds an insurance company liable for injuries caused by the spouse of an employee who has fleet insurance with that company and who was driving her personal car.
You might be right that the brother was under 18; if that’s the case, i retract that part of my comment.
But, as for your second question, i think we’re talking about two different things. In the case you describe, it might simply be that the insurance policy covers spouses even in their personal cars. I don’t know.
But that’s rather different from an insurance company going after the parents just because their offspring happened to be in a car accident and have no money. If the kid brother was under 18, you might be right, but if he’s an adult i can’t think of a legal principle that would make the parents responsible to the insurance company for his accident, unless they had previously agreed to such a condition.
A friend of mine had a scratch on his car. His sister sells Lincoln/Mercuries. He gave it to her to get it fixed. The next day while she was driving it back to him, it was totaled. She sold him a new one. Worked well for her. Not so well for him. He paid for a repair he never saw and had to buy a new car.
Last time I sold a car it was to a contractor who was going to allow his employee to use it. He was sick of having to pick the employee up every day, and he was going to take the money out of his checks gradually. I signed the title over to the contractor. About 4 hours later the employee sold crack to an undercover cop from the car, then ran when they tried to bust him. The car was eventually impounded, and I got a very nice phone call from the Sheriff’s office asking why my car was being used to sell crack. Once I told them I had sold it, they dropped it. It didn’t matter that the title had not been transferred yet, according to them, once I took the money and handed him the keys, it was no longer my car. The contractor couldn’t get it out of impound because it was registered to me, and I refused to go get it out for him. He had to get it titled and registered before he could get it out himself.
In Ohio, it’s called Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle, aka UUMV.