Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Pennsylvania

What you have does not make sense. What receipts are you talking about? There is a bill of sale and they sign the title over to you. You go to the PA DMV and register it.

If you are financing it, you should go through the same process except the seller puts a lien on the title until the car is paid for. A private seller does not have to provide receipts. There is a requirement in the Uniform Commercial Code that a seller has to provide an accounting. But this has to be requested in writing.

Seller cannot get the car back and has no rights to the car if the seller signed over the title to you and its been registered in your name and the seller did not place a lien on the title.

It sounds like this was not handled properly and that documents were not in order. My advice then would be to go to a PA consumer law attorney and pay for him/her to review whatever you have.

If title was already transferred to you then car is in your name already. So car does not go back to seller. Only issue is whether seller recorded a lien or not.

However, if car was not transferred to you into your name, I question how you were able to drive it since you could not insure it. In that case, you own nothing. However, you have paid so the next question is what was the selling price of the car and what evidence do you have proving that you have paid for the car or a portion of the car? If you give the car back, you could sue the seller for costs paid, although the seller would be entitled to a portion of the payments received from you as rental for the use of their car. How much you could get back would depend on circumstances you do not share. However, if you can establish there was in fact an agreement, maybe a court will enforce it. Usually a court will not award specific performance and order the seller to give you the car. However you would get money back.

I would not give the car back and would go talk to a consumer law attorney. Some attorneys will give free consults. If you can get one great but otherwise I would pay for a consult and let the attorney review your documents, see what you have or don't have and talk about why the seller is suddenly reneging. At the very least, maybe the lawyer can send a letter and try to get this worked out for you. Sometimes this helps. Otherwise, if the car is not in your name, you and the attorney will have to decide whether its best to give the car back and get money or hang onto the car. Once you give the car up though you will not have leverage so I would not release it until you have spoken to an attorney. However, if the car is titled in your name already, then your only obligation is to pay the full purchase price. Once you have done that, the seller has to release the lien and title to you and can be compelled to do that.