Can they press charges against us?
In August we bought a car from our neighbor and paid for it until we were officially paid off. A week after we had finished paying the truck off it died and we couldn’t get it to start. We ended up having to sell it. The whole time we had it there was a ladder rack on it that our neighbors had constantly said they were going to take off and never did. Now since we’ve sold the truck (with the rack still on it) they are threatening to sue us because we don’t have the money to pay them back (we work paycheck to paycheck and live on an extremely tight budget). They honestly told us they were going to take it off every weekend up until we sold it (so from August till October, but never did, and we told them we were selling the truck and they never attempted to get it off).
Do they have a leg to stand on in court?
I mean we pay $1600 for a lemon of a truck that you had to put oil in ever 2 days, didn’t have doors that locked or AC and couldn’t pass inspection but we now owe them money? I just don’t think that’s right.
BTW we live right outside Houston, TX.
We didn’t take the rack off because we didn’t have the correct tools, but there were plenty of weekends where we left the truck at our house like they asked us too and took our other car to work so they could take the rack off and they never did.
Thank you for defining the “press charges” and sue thing for me. I didn’t know i was using the wrong term. I greatly appreciate it.
and we only got $500 for the truck when we sold it and never said anything about the ladder rack with any of the paper work. With our neighbors or with the man we sold the truck too.
Yes they gave us all the papers for the truck too. They are saying that they are suing us for stealing it, but we didn’t steal it. We asked them to take it off and they never did and we had to sell it. It broke down in a drive way while we were turning around and it was not our driveway so we had to get rid of it asap.
and they are extremely stubborn and stupid.
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Comments
Charges? No. “Charges” are pressed by the government and allege criminal conduct.
Your neighbors can, however, sue you for the value of their ladder rack. Your post admits that you knew it wasn’t yours, but you sold it anyway. They can sue you for the fair market value of a used ladder rack, whatever that might be.
Why didn’t you just take the rack off yourself before the truck was picked up?
Richard
Well if they can prove that the rack wasn’t part of the sale then they have a short leg. But in all, no they don’t. This will come down to a proof issue, and they won’t have any. It’s their fault they never retrieved the rack, and the can’t sue you because they failed to remove it. You should be totally fine, I don’t see them following through unless they are very stubborn and stupid. It’ll be a waste of time and money for both of you. Good luck
I really don’t think you have anything to worry about, but if by chance you get a summons, call your attorney. The fact is, they sold you the truck, never removed the rack, and apparently gave you the title to the truck with the rack still attached. In my opinion, unless there was something specifically written into a sales contract about the rack remaining their property, they abandoned it.
No, unless there was some written agreement stating that the rack was rightfully their property or something saying that they were going to take the rack back or something along the lines of that, then no, they shouldn’t be able to press charges. Besides, they sound like a typical teenager to me, putting it off every time the opportunity comes up. If they were really serious about getting that rack off, they would have done it before selling the truck. My advice is to just ignore their threats, if they persist, call the police and tell them you are being harassed.
That just my advice, but if your really not sure, just go into the police station and ask them.
Relax. This is a classic Small Claims kind of thing and it sounds like you gave them plenty of time to remove the rack. They can’t expect you to hold onto the truck until they feel like removing the rack. On the other hand, there could be a question of your getting extra money for the truck because the rack was on it. If you knew they wanted the rack back, did you include the rack in the sale price of the truck? If you didn’t include the rack, why didn’t you remove it before it was sold? If you did include the rack in the sale, then you might owe them some money BUT because they never made a move to remove it and they never asked you to remove it for them, the rack might be consider abandoned property.
Winning this kind of legal disargeement depends on your ability to “pretend” to be willing to fight. Even if you don’t have the money for a lawyer, a “bring it on” attitude will make the neighbors think twice about filling any kind of suit. (Even though I can’t imagine a judge not sending this thing directly to Small Claims.) You might remind your neighbors of the time they had to remove their beloved rack and at the same time tell them that you’ll be filling a countersuit and demanding they pay your attorney’s fees and court costs.
They can sue you , but it`s highly unlikely they`ll win !
It was THEIR responsibility to remove the rack ……. not yours ! After advising them the truck was being sold , they didn`t remove the rack , in effect abandoning it ………
Tell them to go ahead and sue …………