Buying A Stolen Vehicle

[JiN_MaN]

...obviously by accident.

Turns out Ive purchased a stolen vehicle. Fantastic, I found out yesterday

Very long story, 16 weeks since it was seized and 6 months since I bought it, Ill cut it down to a paragraph.

I did all the checks before buying, I dont have the full story, but looks like its been plate swapped. I bough it from NSW (of a legitimate car sale website) and brought it back to SA. Car was seized when I went for ID check, hasnt been seen since.

Highly doubt the last owner knows it stolen (NSW)

NSW law states, that 'buyer beware', all checks should be done before buying (I did) and that buyer takes all responsibility to ensure the car is not financed, roadworthy condition and not stolen.

SA lat states, that "Generally if a vehicle is stolen the true owner will be able to recover it and the purchaser will have to recover the price paid from the seller, even if purchased from a dealer." Taken from the 'Vehicle Securities Register'

I have two options,

1. try and get this through the SA courts, take it to small claims, according to legal aid (SA) its a piece of cake, no problems.

2. Prove that he guaranteed me the car was not stolen, I have some paper work, Im currently seeing if this is enough.

Has anybody ever had this happen? Or similar? Any help is much appreciated, im open to any idea.

Edited July 21, 2010 by JiN_MaN

[Beer Baron]

sadly your only real course of action is to recover the cost of the vehicle from the seller. my advice is get onto it sooner rather than later. and if we are talking $20K+ then I would get some paid legal advice too.

[JiN_MaN]

Car value was just under 6k, so small claim court.

NSW law gives me no hope of getting anything from him, unless he knows it was stolen. Which Im 90% he doesnt.

[mastadd]

Car value was just under 6k, so small claim court.

NSW law gives me no hope of getting anything from him, unless he knows it was stolen. Which Im 90% he doesnt.

Serious that doesn't sound correct, of cause he is not going to admit to knowing it was stolen.

[Birds]

How did they find out it was stolen during the ID check if your pre-purchase checks didn't?

Sounds a bit shit...and like a really grey area in terms of justice for you.

[02stagea]

That's really crap mate. I would be ringing REVS or whoever you used to check it out and asking them what their policy is if you were to use their service and the vehicle found later to have finance or similar. If they say there system is accurate or similar then let rip on them.

[Blitz]

Can you provide more specifics on exactly what the 'usual' checks were that you did?

[mad082]

by the sounds of it, if you did a check based on the rego details then the VIN number would've had to have been different on the info to the one on the actual car. that would be the only way that a check would've shown that the car was fine (rego number wasn't stolen, but vin number was).

also don't expect to keep the car without having to pay more money. i know of a few incidents that have ended badly for the buyer of the car. 1 is a guy who bought a car that had been stolen from a car yard by an employee. he then was selling it as unregisterable but after looking at all the paperwork the guy thought that it seemed as though it would be registerable. went to register it, found out that all the numbers on the car had been duplicated and there was a car down in nsw with all the same numbers, car got impounded, went to court and is currently paying off the car to the car yard, as well as his loan for buying the car off the dodgy guy.

another one is a guy who bought a car that had had 3 other owners in the past 6 or 8 weeks. first owner had payed for it with a dodgy check and had taken it straight to the auctions to sell (had no intention of keeping it). next guy bought it from the auctions cheap, could've done a vehicle check and it would've been clean as he bought it before the check bounced. he bought it to sell and make a profit. he sold it in about a week. next guy bought it, got pulled over for an RBT and was told that the car was under investigation in a fraud case. he then sold the car cause he didn't want anything to do with it. next guy bought it, had it for a few weeks before it got impounded until it went to court. court found in favour of the original owner and he got the car back but did a deal with the latest owner to sell the car to him cheap. so in the end the last owner was out of pocket an extra few thousand dollars. i also have a feeling that all the revs checks came up clean on this car, because the car wasn't technically classed as stolen.

either way, after hearing all these stories it's made me much more wary when buying cars. if i was buying another car i would do a revs check but also take all the numbers to the police station to get it checked through their system before buying.

[JiN_MaN]

Usually checks I did was REVS and RTA check,

Plates had been cut out of the car and replaced with unstolen plates. So all details on car match the rego and the rego was for an unstolen Nissan Skyline.

Anything people have to say keep going. Any suggestions people have I will look into as far as I can.

Edited July 21, 2010 by JiN_MaN

[GTR R35]

Did you pay the $14.10 for the certificate ?

From the REVS website:

For a fee of $14.10 a REVS Search Certificate, which gives you conditional legal protection against repossession due to the previous owner's unpaid debt, is available to you for purchase online. You can also purchase a certificate from the REVS telephone service on 13 32 20 Monday to Saturday. Telephone service hours are, weekdays from 8:30am to 5pm and Saturdays from 9am to 2pm.

[JiN_MaN]

I didn't pay the money for the certificate, I simply rung up and and checked all details. The certificate doesn't cover against a stolen car as far as I know only against repossession from finances owning.

Also I was pulled over soon after having the vehicle back in SA and the police checked the car, did their stuff on the computer and sent me on my may, no questions asked.

Edited July 21, 2010 by JiN_MaN

[Jdfnq]

Jeebus that's hard luck dude...

Your best bet is still probably through small claims....

[Iron Chef]

Matt, speak to Simon at SA Car Imports, he had a similar thing happen with a WRX recently and ended up getting the car back.

[JiN_MaN]

Thank you Kristian, Ill call him tomorrow

*edit* If you have a number please post it up, not listed in white pages, google or phonebook

Edited July 21, 2010 by JiN_MaN

[Iron Chef]

0431 388 718

[too_much_boost]

How do they know it was stolen as opposed to a numbers swap to get an uncomplied car onto the road cheap? They would have cut out all the old identifying tags to replace them with the new ones wouldn't they so they would have no way to tell what the original identification of the car was?

[mad082]

yeah that's what gets me. if all the numbers were good enough to not show any irregularities during a rego check, how did it then get found to be stolen once you owned it? obviously there was a number somewhere on the car that didn't match the others.

[JiN_MaN]

0431 388 718

Thank you Kristian, he was very helpful. Very similar circumstances, gave me some people to call.

Everybodys help is much appreciated.

Edited July 22, 2010 by JiN_MaN

[Iron Chef]

No probs mate