Dealer Did Not Provide the Title for Over 2 Years - True Story
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By: Daniel W. Whitney, Jr., Esq.
Whitney, LLP
409 Washington Ave, Ste 750
Towson, MD 21204
410 583 8000 - Phone
info@whitneyfirm.com
Free Consultations
This is Dan Whitney with the Whitney Law Firm in Towson, Maryland. Today, we're going to talk about the issue of car dealers selling a car and not providing the title. So I've represented many consumers in Maryland who have purchased a car and the dealer either does not provide the title or it takes months and months to provide the title in violation of Maryland rules and administrative regulations.
So what often happens is a car dealership will sell a car, but they don't have the title. Perhaps the lien has not been paid off from when they bought it at auction or when it was traded in, or some other issue. Now, a specific case that I want to talk about today is a recent one, and this involves a husband and wife who came to Maryland from out of state and they bought a car, and fast forward two and a half years, the dealership never provided the title.
And this is a large dealership with approximately 20 different stores who certainly should know better and certainly has the capability of fixing a problem like this, which begs the question, why did they not fix it? So what happens is this, this family comes up from out of state, they buy a car, it's a used vehicle. They're given a 60 day temp tag. The temp tag expires, so they call the dealership, the dealer issues a 30 day tag. The 30 day tag expires.
So the husband starts to call the dealership, and over two and a half years, he calls dozens of times. And towards the beginning of this problem, he calls and he says, "Listen, I haven't gotten my registration yet. I can't legally drive this vehicle. Can you please fix the problem?" And they say, "We haven't sent you the title and registered the vehicle yet in your state because you owe us $3,000. We gave you too much of a credit due to your military service, but we actually shouldn't have given it to you. And bottom line, you got to pay $3000 more."
And he says, "You know what? I don't think that's fair, but I need this car registered. My family uses it. Fine." Cuts a check, sends it to the dealership.
They never cash the check. So he calls and he says, "Listen, I sent you a check for $3,000. It was never cashed. What's going on? My car needs to be registered." And they say, "Actually, we have no record of your deal in our records." And he says, "Well, that's crazy because I owe the bank money every month now, about $500 a month, and you guys got paid on this. The bank has told me that. So I know you have a copy in my file." "We don't have a copy."
So he keeps calling and calling and different managers tell him that he'll look into this until finally in December of 2020 he calls and he speaks with somebody. He says, "Look, it's been about two years now. I don't have my title. My wife actually was driving the vehicle on the expired temp tags and she got pulled over and she got a ticket. So this is a huge problem now. Please help."
And they actually tell him, "We are not going to do anything else involving your vehicle." They simply wash their hands of it as if that's something they're legally allowed to do. But keep in mind dealerships are very often unlawful places and they do whatever they think they can do that they can get away with it. That's largely how they operate, especially here in Maryland. So what happens next? Well, after she got pulled over in the vehicle, they actually had to buy another vehicle. So now they've got two car payments and two insurance payments because they needed to be able to transport their family without fear of being pulled over, ticketed, and or arrested for driving an unregistered vehicle. So after they're told by the dealership, "Look, we're just not going to do anything else," they ended up calling my office.
I take their case, file a lawsuit. The causes of action include the Consumer Protection Act, negligence, fraud, and unjust enrichment, because, of course, the client is paying for something that dealership has received money for a product which it never should have sold and to which the clients were actually never able to purchase because they never got the title. In other words, they've been making payments on something they don't own, up to this point they don't own, and that's not what is supposed to happen when you buy a car.
If this happened to you in Maryland, please feel free to call me, Dan Whitney, at the Whitney Law Firm, or go to our website, www.whitneyfirm.com, and I'm happy to offer a free consultation.
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