So i bought a car from my cousins car lot(kind of a fishy lot as it’s personally owned)A year after i bought i hydroplaned into a ditch, there was some minor damage to the underneath. So my cousin said to bring it to his shop and he’ll take a look at it. I towed it up there and he ended up saying it would be 400$ to fix however a different mechanic said it would only be 250$. So i told my cousin i would tow it to my house so it could go to the other shop when they had time. During that time my house burned down and i lost my mother. My cousin offered to pay for the tow to my house. I sent him the address and he said give him a week. Today i rode past and my car wasn’t there so i called him up and he said he junked it because repairs were over 1000$. He said he couldn’t get ahold of me and lost the address to where it was supposed to get towed. He got 150$ for junking it and said i could get another 100$ if i gave them the title. I told him i wanted my car, he said to get the car back he had to give back the 150$ and i had to pay 200$ on top of that for them to tow it back to my house. We argued back and forth because i said that was his problem. Is there a way to sue him ? Any advice is appreciated . Location: Cleveland Ohio
Comments
If you have it on writing save it. Call logs too. Gather evidence get everything in writing and yeah go get a lawyer
You left out important information. A) how long was the car at the mechanic’s and B) what the car was. If the you left it there for more than a few days, they had the legal right to charge you for storage. If those costs (plus any diagnostic fees or any work they had done) exceeded the value of the car then they absolutely had the right to put a lien on it. If you left it for a long time they had the right to dispose of it abandoned property, especially if the value of the car was less than the cost to fix it.
This all depends on the market value of the car before the crash. If it was a valuable car and the crash didn’t total it then maybe. If it was an older used car or the crash totaled it (air bags, bent frame etc) then you’re out of luck.