Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

What was your agreement as to who would own the vehicle and have the right to drlive it? She will say it is a gift and what evidence do you have to disprove that? She may honestly believe it was a gift. You could sue her for the vehicle or its current value, but how are you going to meet your burden of proof? I think you just need to be forget about it and be more careful in the future.

Damn! George just nailed that answer.

I agree; it'll look like a gift to a judge or jury and you'll bear the burden of proof to convince them otherwise, even if you have excellent proof of payment. This problem comes up in real estate ownership cases from time to time, and it is sometimes possible for the person who paid for real property to get it back from another person whose name was placed on title, but there is a rebuttable presumption of a gift that must be overcome by the plaintiff when there was a close rrelationship between the parties. If you have witnesses that can explain how this all came about, and their story favors a "there was no intent to make a gift" interpretation of the facts, go for it. Hopefully, this fits the Small Claims ($7,500) jurisdictional threshold so you don't bear the time and expense of going to Superior Court.

How much is the car worth? It may be worth a quiet of title action. I apologize for the "know it all" attitude of my collegues who rather play judge than advocate. Contact me directly.