What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Michigan
My ex-boyfriend and I purchased a vehicle together and we are no longer together due to domestic violence. He turned in the vehicle to a dealership as a trade-in and got something else. The loan company says the loan is paid off, but the dealership has possession of the vehicle and wants me to sign off the title. Since it is paid off do i have rights to the vehicle?
You could have asked an easier question. This one isn’t. In fact it is troublesome.
But first the easy part:
The status of the loan, whether satisfied and released or not, has nothing to do with yours and the dealership’s respective claims to the vehicle. It’s the state of the title not the state of the loan that is critical to your question,
If, in order to transfer ownership of the trade-in, your endorsement on the title was necessary, (that is, the title reads _____ and _____ ) then the dealership dropped the ball and is holding a vehicle they can’t legally sell.
And as unlikely as that would seem, yet because the dealership is asking for your signature, we should assume here that title was issued in the conjunctive requiring both signatures rather than in the alternative requiring but one.
Assuming that is the case, then you and your ex boyfriend were co-owners with each owning an undivided one half interest in the trade-in. And all either one of you could sell, separately and individually, is a one half-undivided interest.
Theoretically then you and the dealership are now the co-owners of the vehicle.
What is the solution? I’ll tell you. I don’t know!
Normally when co –owners of property, either land or chattels, are unable to resolve their differences over the disposition and use of the jointly owned property, the law provides relief by what is known as and Action for Partition.
(Yes, you can seek judicial partition of personal property as well as real property!)
There, when the circumstances of the property are such that it cannot be fairly divided - the court orders the property sold by the sheriff or a referee with the net proceeds divided proportionate to the respective individual ownership interests.
But neither your one half interest nor his were owned free and clear. That co-ownership was subject to the loan. So in theory you could not claim entitlement to one half of the market value of the vehicle. You would have to somehow show that you were legitimately or voluntarily enriched through the trade-in transaction by which the loan was paid off.
And that is why this is such a sticky wicket.
But here is what I would do if I were your attorney.
I would take the amount the dealer credited for the trade-in. Subtract the payoff on the loan. Divided the balance in half and tell the dealership that you will sign off on the title once we have their certified check in that amount and payable to your order.
