What happens if you don't pay your car loan, but they can't find your car for repossession?
My little sister live in Atlanta and has a car that she's paying on. I think she's about halfway through the payments on it. She is moving to New York City and wants to take her car. But she's telling me she's just going to store it in a garage in Jersey somewhere and stop making the payments because she wants to keep her car for as long as she can.. So they may not be able to locate it for repossession. But I'm scared because can't she be charged with theft? What if like a year goes by and they still haven't repo'd the car? I'm afraid she'll be charged with car theft or something.. She thinks she's slick but I can't talk her out of it! She seems to think that at some point they'll just write it off and maybe even get a judgement against her which will RUIN her credit but she doesn't seem to care! I'm just concerned about any legal action..
Let me know how this works!
2011-11-25T12:16:02Z
Well, I think she's just using a friends home garage.. I honestly hope they find and repo it, but lets just say for arguments sake that they can't find the car. What happens?
Paul2011-11-29T06:16:18Z
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Hi, I am a licensed repo agent in the state of Texas. The first issue is that intentionally interfering with a repo is against the law. This is to benefit the lender in securing the debt when it is in default. Hiding a auto not only is illegal, but the problems will not end there. 1. You can't sell the car due to a lien, 2. It is illegal to intentionally interfere with a repo, 3. The lender may file a lawsuit, and/or file for a sheriff/officer to repo the property. 4. This will have a large negative impact on this person credit.
The lender will 99.9% of the time never write it off. The only write off I have ever seen was a buy here pay here lot went out of business. You have to ask yourself, if it was your car would you write it off?
Hahaha! I know this will come out mean, but your sister thinking that she's slick with this situation makes her look so dumb. This is a logically dumb act by her because all the fines and cost for the car will be on her for at least 10 years or even more. They won't just stop because they can't find the car after a year or two. Like what the other answerers described... They will do whatever it takes to get their hands on the car or money or both if the payments on the car are more than the value of the car at the point of resale. Good luck trying to convince her out of stupidity! I know that people who has that are a bit on the stubborn side.
If you don't pay the car loan yet keep the car? Sounds like stealing. I'm not a lawyer, but I think they call that 'grand theft' and it's very much against the law. Even if they don't find the car for repossession, they will find her and believe me, she will regret the decision.
If they really can't find the car they'd be able to go to a judge and get a ruling against her to pay the value of the car. If she chooses not to pay then they can request a wage garnishment and take money from her before she even sees it. If she doesn't have a paycheck to garish they can freeze bank accounts and get money that way. Tax refunds are also fair game. If she has a house or any other vehicles they can put a lien against them. Either way they'll get the car or the money that it's worth.