Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

Re: Vehicle

It sounds as if the lender is not interested in recovering their collateral. Given your description of the vehicle, I'm not entirely surprised. You have a coule of options. First, you can do some investigating to see if the company is still in business. Its possible that they went out of business in this wonderful economy we are all suffering with. If that is the case, you can contact the department in Arizona which is responsible for licensing automotive dealers. They should have a recovery fund, or be able to help you process a transfer of title into your name. Even if they are still in business, you may wish to do this because the lender is clearly no longer communicating with you. Second, you can continue to attempt to contact them and offer some amount of cash to pay off the loan, and have them release the vehicle. Again, given their lack of interest in it, its worth making an offer to see if they will give you title for something less than what you owe. Final option is to notify the lender in writing that you intend to surrender the vehicle and give them one week to come get the van; get proof of delivery of that letter, then when the week is up, move the car into the street and let it be towed by the City. The impounder will notify the lender that they are going to sell the car for impound fees, and the lender must either then step up and pay the fees and recover the van, or write it off. In the case of either, they still have the right to sue you for the balance of the loan, but I don't see a way around that unless you get them to agree to accept less than the whole amount for payoff of the van.

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