Left in limbo

What is the name of your state? New York State

I am wondering what to do, I have a car for sale..but I work over the road so I parked it at my parents property. I posted for sale with my number to call me at. While away at work a young man came and said he wanted to purchase the car. Without my knowledge at the time he gave the money to my father. My father did not give him a bill of sale, nor did he give the tiltle to the gentleman. The young man just gave him the money, said he wanted it and left. 5 weeks have past and I have repeatedly tried to contact this gentleman and I cannot get ahold of him. Now today I recieved a call from my father telling me that the young man came to the house to look at the car. While he was there looking at the car he pulled the door open to far and put a big dent in the car door. He never said anything to my father except he did not know when he could come and get the car. Now I am wondering what do I do.. I cannot have it sitting much longer on the property, and I have tried everyway to contact him to tell him we have to meet to get this deal final. Do I sell it to someone else..or put it in storage until the young man gets the car?

So what you're saying is that some moron gave your father money and didn't ask for a receipt of any kind? (how long before he posts on this forum... ) How much did you sell the car for? How much damage did he do?

I'll start with the lawful, legal side of the situation. Right now the man has no rights to the car. He does owe you for the damage he did. You can still sell your car because you have no contract with anybody to sell the car. Your father's agreement means very little because he doesn't own the car. He could be represented as an authorized seller of the car, but he's not a used car dealer (I assume) so legally he can only make the deal on your car but not collect any money. So go ahead and sell it. Save the man's money because he is entitled to that money. The damages to your car are a separate issue and legally you can't keep money from what he paid for the car against those damages.

Now for the real world side of things. Get an estimate on how much the damage to the car is. Then take that out of the money you have from the guy and put the rest in away in a drawer to give back to him. Then sell the car to somebody else and make sure you get a bill of sale and sign over the title. Then if or when the original buyer comes around, give him the money you saved and tell him the rest paid for the damages he did, and that he can accept that or you'll sue him for the damages and keep his money until he sues you for it.