Legal Question About Car Payment...Can you Help?

About 2 years ago, Instead of Co-Signing for a 2005 Chevy Impala, my girfriends parents (she's now 22) paid cash for the car and she makes monthly payments of $440.00 to them while they hold onto the title. (It's in her parents name) She has made every payment on time and has so far paid them $5,720. She takes care of all maintanance & Insurance. She's been paying them cash & not getting a receipt all this time. Now her mom is mad at her about something entirely different than the car or money. Her mom told her she wants the car back and that she has already reported it stolen. The police said that even though My girfriend has had it in her possession since day one and has made all payments, if her mom has the title stating that she is the owner, the car must go to the parents. What can she do? She figured it was her parents and she would never in a million years need to worry about getting reciepts when paying them cash...$5,720 to be exact. Any Suggestions? Thank

Think of it as a lease. Give them back the car. Get another car and other parents.

While the title is in the parents name, is the registration in hers? Can she prove in any way she made the payments? Does she have any records that show the payments, even if made by her?

If the registration is in her name, reporting it stolen will back-fire on the parents.

If she can not settle this with her mom, she will need to take them to court. If she does settle it, she should write up a contract, get a receipt for the money already paid and get the registration in her name.

If you are going to do business with family you should still do it right.

She still should have gotten receipts or if she has cancelled checks, that would work too. The thing is, she needs proof that she has paid. If she has withdrawal slips or monthly statements that shows she took the same amount out of her bank account, that might help her argument.

The best thing to have done in the beginning would have been for both parties to have a written agreement signed by both.

She might try taking the case to Judge Mathis, Judy or some other judge tv show to make a clown out of them in front of the nation.

take her mom to small claims court..

w/o the receipt it will be hard but not impossible to win

Lesson learned ALWAYS get a receipt.

of course, if she gives the car back...her parents have to make the payments...that may change their minds

She would basically have to go to small claims court and sue her parents for what she has paid so far. Probably not worth the trouble.

I don't think there is anything she can do, sorry. But that does suck that her own parents would do that to her.

If it were me...
...well, in my jurisdiction, I'd be pretty confident that no criminal charges would hold up against me, but that's partly because of the framing of the theft provisions under the Criminal Code of Canada. (Theft is when an object is taken or withheld 'without colour of right'. That sort of arrangement would give significant equitable rights in the car.) Of course, I would also have paid by cheque.

Even so, I'd probably just return the car and sue the parents. There would be evidentiary problems, obviously, but even if I had paid cash, I should be able to provide a number of corroborative pieces of evidence:
(1) Significant withdrawals of money from my bank account at particular intervals. If I'm saying that I'm paying $440 a month, and I can show that around the end of every month I withdrew $500...easily done.
(2) When I service my vehicle, the mechanic takes *my* name. Even if I hadn't kept the receipt, I'd be able to get the mechanic's records to prove that it was me servicing the vehicle at that time.
(3) If properly insured, the insurance policy should be in my name, or at least should have my name in it.
(4) Once civil proceedings began, it should be possible to subpoena the parents' bank records, which would - in the normal course of things - show regular receipt of $440.