legal deffinition of ownership?

[lambert]

how does the law determine ownership of a car, given a v5 is just the regestered keeper? i.e. if i lent money to a friend to buy a car without a formal agreement  do i have any call on title to it?

[Lord Shagg-Pyle]

Civil law is not really my forte, but the V5 is the document that shows 'the registered keeper' and is not a legal proof of ownership.
 If you gave him the full amount of the money then 'technically' it is yours, but you would need to have some tangible proof that you lent him the money. 'My word is my bond' is not worth much these days.

[waveydavey]

How was it brought? The receipt from the seller would be the main proof; how good a friend are you still?

Depending on the amount start talking about small claims; fill out the forms and get your 'friend' to verify his details, that will often scare people enough to start talking again.

[lambert]

ah ok, missunderstanding. i am being paid back that is not an issue. i'm wondering who owns the car whilst the repayments are still being made, cos on proper hp the company own it till the final payment correct?

[Boddle]

 If my memory serves me correctly with regards to Loans the item is owned by the Loaner till they person who loaned the money has payed upto 1/3 the value of the item the loan was for (need to speak to trading standards for that). After that you need to use small claims courts to agree to any action.
 Supprised the Police would have anything to do with it as a loan is generally a civil matter and therefore they have no legal power being a civil matter.

[mudmuncher]

To me it sounds like a personal loan like as if they went to a bank. The bank asks what you want the loan for ie car purchase / holiday etc but they dont ask for proof that you bought that item. You could spend it down the pub for all they know. Therefore the bank is not the legal owner. You can get a securred loan against a said item ie house or the car but i guess you'd need that in writing.

[Big Watty]

My understanding is that unless you've got an agreement for the loan that specfies what security you have taken, which in this case would be the car, then you have no claim on it. You should have a loan agreement in place anyway but even without that as long as you can prove you've lent the money you should be able to get it back through the small claims court.

If you need to  :)

[DoubleTop]

I'm a simple bloke - the man who owns it is the guy with the keys  :doh:

DT.

[Sider]

dont trust anyone m8 i learnt the hard way let someone have some stuff he could not afford to pay at the time so i let him have it and pay me when he got paid but now still no cash and no items sent back as was promissed and he even told the local plod he would be sending then by post first thing on monday the 5th jan if they dont come in the morning then i will be getting the plod to go round again and make sure they do the job right this time and i know not all police pfficers are like it there are some very helpfull ones but some dont care well down here they dont

And the rumourhas been proven true: Punctuation has not been discovered yet in the far east of the country :D :twisted: :twisted:

As for ownership, if my memory doesn't fail me (which is quite a tall proposition), in the case you describe your friend owns the vehicle. It would be different if you sold him the vehicle in comfortable instalments under a gentleman's agreement, but since you never owned the vehicle in the first place, there's no argument about ownership.

[Range Rover Blues]

The law protects finance comanies who lend money for cars, what you have done is lent a mate some cash.  As you didn't pay for the car and have no written agreement then it's his car and he owes you some dosh.