Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

recovering stolen property

We are wondering what our legal rights on some property of ours. We hired someone to refinish our back deck in exchange for a nice fountain in our front yard. He found a home for it at someone who lives by us to refinished it and sell it to them. We let him take in good faith to start working on it (our mistake) and now he has basically stopped working at our house and I don't believe he'll ever finish. I'm thinking about pressing charges for theft (can I do this?) and have threatened to go over to these people's house (they live about 8 blocks away) and take it back. They know where the fountain came from and also know that we are having problems with this guy, so I don't think they'd be shocked. Can we legally go take it back (it's in the front of their house)? It seems like we should as it it's effectively stolen property and it's like buying a hot stereo in that I don't think it's legally yours even if you paid for it. If I need some sort of cour order to take it back, where do I start with this?


Asked on 11/20/07, 2:21 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
George Shers Law Offices of Georges H. Shers

Re: recovering stolen property

No, it is not stolen property and you can not take it from the current owners. You have a breach of contract action against the contractor and must sue him. If the fountain is worth less than $7,500 you can sue for money damages [but not the return of the fountain] in Small Claims Court, asking for the value of the fountain, any damages from the work not being completed, minus any value form the work that was done [if the whole project would have to start over from the beginning, then there is no value from the work that was done.

While the neighbors may know all of the details of what occurred, it is a civil wrong that happened and I doubt you can sue them, especially since they will deny knowing that he took the fountain with the intent not to complete the work. If he is not licensed, then he would not be allowed to charge you anything. Since you do not want the fountain, you should basically consider it a situation of a forced sale to him with a suit to get paid its value.

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Answered on 11/21/07, 1:09 pm


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