Legal Question in Consumer Law in California

Re: Automobile Lienholder Liability

Why would you loan a friend money to buy a car? Have you looked at your friend's credit report? Has this friend burned all the banks and finance companies already? How do you know he or she will let you put yourself on as lienholder of the car, now that they have the money? And no, you wouldn't have liability.

Re: Automobile Lienholder Liability

If you mean put yourself on the title, then I believe you could potentially have liability issues. If you literally mean what you said, as a lienholder only, then I agree with the prior answer, no liability.

As for the loan itself, see this recent bankrate.com story http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/DrDon/20070706_co-sign_negative_amortization_a1.asp?prodtype=pfin concluding it is usually a bad idea to co-sign or to loan money to people that banks won't touch.