L Calabasas & O.C. shut down?

I agree.

 

I thought the same thing being a principal myself...I even stated it... But that does not seem to be case. VW is repoing the cars...

 

The discounts may be the crux of the issue.

If someone paid less than fair value for the cars, they were not bona-fide buyers. It would be immaterial if they were not party to fraud, because if VW can show they were not bona fide buyers, those cars are going back.

Also, if they were bona-fide buyers but VW can show the cars were 'stolen', the cars go back to VW also.

VW has deep pockets and have already repo'ed at least one car.

 

If this is true, then VW will also be going after Vik's VW franchise in OC.... Is my assumption correct?

Thanks,
UZY

 

I suspect the matter will be before the courts in short order.

You mention that if the purchasers have paid less than fair value for the asset, they are not bona-fide buyers.

I beg to differ.

Provided that the deal was done at arms length (that the new owners have no ties to the owners of the company) I would think that the VW is up the creek.

The customers are exactly that and can not reasonably be expected to know what the car cost the dealer, nor what normal mark up would be. They are there to purchase a vehicle at a price that has been offered to them.
For example, every year the big three automakers announce huge year end discounts to move product at the end of the year hoping the public will purchase these vehicles. The customer merely makes the choice to buy the vehicle at the discount rate.

While I do not have the particulars, if these vehicles have been paid for in full, and VW chooses to take the vehicle away from the customer, it is possible they may be committing theft.

 

I agree. According to California Law, these cars still belong to the dealers that bought them from LOC. The titles are in their names free of any liens or holds. The car(s) taken by VW Credit last week were in fact stolen. Check out California Vehicle Code 10851 (a) Taking Vehicle Without Owner's Consent

10851. (a) Any person who drives or takes a vehicle not his or her own, without the consent of the owner thereof, and with intent either to permanently or temporarily deprive the owner thereof of his or her title to or possession of the vehicle, whether with or without intent to steal the vehicle, or any person who is a party or an accessory to or an accomplice in the driving or unauthorized taking or stealing, is guilty of a public offense and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail for not more than one year or in the state prison or by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

If VW Credit had a claim, they have had ample to time to file a claim in court against these dealers. From what I know, they filed 30 day Title Holds with California DMV from November 17 to December 17. After December 17, the holds were lifted. I read some posts about people saying that VW has deep pockets and lots of attorneys on staff. I agree but keep in mind that they also have a lot of errand boys who may forget that they may expose themselves and VW Credit to legal action if they try to be cowboys.

 

The issue from what I am being told is...there ware no lein releases given with titles..The buyers do not own the cars...VW credit does under there floor plan..that is why VW is repoing cars right now from what i have been told.

 

The cars were transfered legally and new titles were issued with the dealer's name on it. If VW has that type of position, don't you think they would get a court order of some sort and repo all of them? At that point, they wouldn't have to find a weak link (Lamborghini Beverly Hills) and muscle them to hand over the keys so they could take off with the cars. I can't wait to see how this turns out. It wll be interesting.

 

See when a dealer buys a car, the dealer has to put the title in to there name, and the floor company will either list themselves on the face of the title or do a blanket UCC filing..either way you could be given a title as a buyer, but it still does not mean that the lein has been released...

To futher add...some of the cars of not yet been registered there is no way for VW to know where the cars are...
I made a long post about titles a few months back..

With all the talk here about titles and how they work and liens on file and liens on paper, I thought I would take few mins and explain the process! In this thread I am going to talk about some terms that are not common for anyone outside the car business, and maybe some attorneys! I will cover the difference between a wholesale deal, and a retail deal, what dealer reassignment is, in-state sales and titles and out-of-state sales and titles, and some differences in each state. I will try to explain the best I can, and how to avoid issues like the ones going on here, and how to protect you from a similar situation!

I will talk first about how dealers buy car for there inventory! When a dealership, needs inventory we use a number of different sources to buy cars, like the auto auction, a broker, a wholesaler, or a couple of different dealer trading networks. Dealers in most cases use what is called a “floor plan” line of credit. A floor plan is a system of financing that permits a dealer to borrow money to buy inventory, which becomes the security for the loan that is repaid when the merchandise is sold. Thus the floor planning lender places a “lien” on all stock inventories, until the loan is repaid! Normally floor plans are short terms notes 90-120 days full curtailment! If you have go to dealership, and you purchase a new car, and trade your old one in, the dealer would pay down the note at the bank on that one car they just sold, and re-floor your trade, pay off any liens you might have, out of the funds coming from financing or cash in the deal, have a clear title to the customer, and a clear title on the trade! Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of talk of dealers not paying off trades, and customers are left 2 cars payments and there credit shot! How this happens is when a dealer is over extended his floor plan, and can not borrow on your trade-in, so he has to sell the trade-in first…in some cases it takes longer then 120 days to sell a car, so the customer is late 4 months of payments, and the bank is looking for the car! The new owner buys the car, can not get a free and clear title, and the former owner is left with negative credit, and the dealer receive a fine, faces jail time and refunds all funds plus interest to the parties.

When a dealer sells a car to retail buyer, the contract is between the dealer and the customer, the title is being delivered to the customer free of any liens, minus any financing the customer received to buy the car in the first place. Laws are different in each state, some being what called “title in hand” states which means the customer will receive a title from the dealership, with no liens listed; it will be a title in the dealerships name signed over to the owner. For in-state sales the tile will have also have a application for title with it, and any reassignment of title to the lien holder, and where the title needs to be sent once in issued to the new owner, either to the customer with lien noted or to the lender with lien noted. In some cases, when the dealer or lender sends the title to the customer because the state requires it for the owner to register the new car, the new owner might neglect to inform the state there is lien on the car. So the state issues a title free and clear. Shortly there after the finance company will notify the state the customer xyz, bought vin# abc, the state then notes the title and send the owner a letter to inform them they now have a lien on the car.

Let’s say in between this process a customer decides “hey I can make some fast money here lol!” And they then go sell the car, they have a free and clear title, so they go there local broker, sells them the car, the broker has the seller sign the title over to the broker, and seller collect his payday! He disappears and takes the money. The broker who bought his car has no idea that the title has issues; he decides just wholesale the car to a different broker or wholesaler. When the broker sells the car, he is not required to place the title in to his name, so he reassigns the title to the new broker, who in turns markets the car to a wholesaler where the title just keeps getting reassignment form broker to broker. In this case there would be a free in clear title in the hands of each broker and everything would appear to be fine! But remember the state sent the original owner a copy of the lien that was reported to them by the finance company, and he felt like getting rich and sold the car!

So now a retail customer who wants to put the car in his garage finds the car, so he buys the car. This retail buyer does not live in the dealer’s home state, in some states the dealer doesn’t have to register the car to there dealership, keeping the circle going, of dealer reassignment to the retail buyer. The new buyer drives his car the first 30-120 days thinking “WOW, I feel so cool in my new car, but now I have to go get plates and pay tax” So he takes his dealer reassigned paper and goes to his court house, to a titling company and pays his tax and lic. Drives home! Remember that the first owner received from the state that there was lien on the car, but he choose to sell the car first???

Well here’s ware it gets fun! Since none of the other broker registered there car into a dealership name, the car stayed under the radar…So because of the lien the original owners state sent the letter about, now shows up, with this being the first time a new title gets issued, Boom his car is gone! So the buyer would go back to the dealership he bought the car from based on the lien now found, the dealer would be obligated to return the buyers money, and follow the paper trail all the way back to the original owner

This could happen, weather the sale is a in-state or out-of-state. In some sates the dealer is not required to flip the title into the dealerships name until the car has been resold to a retail end user. Since the new owner has temp tags, the selling dealer would move to place the title into the dealerships name at the time of sale…So for at least 20 days, the dealer and the buyer thinks everything fine! At some point during the temp tag period, the dealer would receive a letter from there sate DMV letting them know that a title can not be issued because there is lien listed in another state…At this point the dealer, would start back-tracking all the way to lien holder, and get the facts…The dealer then would call the customer and explain what has happened, and them return the car, or the dealer could work to clear up the situation on there end! So you can see how tricky this really could get!

 

Again, all these cars have some form of factory installed GPS. They should be able to locate the cars and disable them. Then let the owners fight them out in court for doing it.

 

Its like I said above..it can be tricky..all i know is what i have been told...

I hope the best for owners...

 

Thanks for taking the time to explain. It is very helpful. All I know is that the titles for the cars were received from DMV with the names of the new purchasers not LOC. They previously had holds on them that the DMV placed as a courtesy. VW had 30 days to file a lawsuit in court which they didn't and the titles are now clear and many of the cars in question have been sold to retail buyers and they have been registered to the retail buyer. Is it fair to say that as of right now, not later, but as of right now that the State Of California and DMV both do not have VW as any type of owner on these cars? Therefore, by taking these cars without any type of legal paperwork or authority, are they not committing theft?

 

I wonder if VW forced placed the liens and they are on file, somtimes forced place liens might not show up until a month after the car has been registered by the new owners....Like i said in my long post...The new owner recives a free and clear title, but the lien was there somtime later...

I do know that VW is looking for the cars and I know of at least one the was taken back...Though I only know the story through the dealer networks...

 

From what I know, the titles were issued in early November and DMV inquiries were ran every week thereafter and they are still clear. It's very confusing. I wonder how law enforcement feels about all this.

 

Its mess thats for sure.. I ahve heard stranger things...It seems that here over the last 2 years lenders ware forgetful with force placing liens..I have heard some horror stories and will be the first to say, that it doen't always go the way of my post..though it thats way it's supposed to go..

From another friend I have talked with most cars ware sold through brokers and wholesalers to other dealers that in turn resold them?

 

365 posts on this, nearly all based on pure speculation.
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Please clarify...

 

The owners of the cars..It should have read I hope the best for the buyers..

 

Perhaps it should have read... he whom holds the keys.

 

These are crazy time we are living in right now. With the economy the way it is how could VW possibly prove the cars were sold under fair value? What is fair value today? I personally just picked up an NSX for a price you couldn't possibly believe. I shot a super insulting low ball and the guy said that if I had the cash come and get it. Nothing like a mint NSX as your beater car. Would any price surprise you these days? Go to any dealer and try and trade in whatever it is you have and you'll be shocked. I wish the best for the folks that bought these cars.

 

I beleive you are misunderstanding how GPS works.

A car with GPS navigation is only a receiver. It takes satellite signals and uses them to triangulate the car's position and display a map and such with that information.

It does not broadcast the position of the vehicle back to anyone or anything.

The systems that do broadcast the position are things like OnStar. Maybe Lambo has some service similar to OnStar but 'vanilla' navigation systems are one-way information passageways, and that is only TO the car, not from it.

Just like the radio in your car... you can receive radio stations but it is receive only, not transmit.

 

A GPS is typically a receiver, not a transmitter. For them to have a transmitter with GPS location data, they would under most states have to disclose that the device exists in the car. It's a matter of privacy.

 

I heard a rumor from a reliable source that adds a whole new twist to all that's been posted and because nothing has come out yet from VW or anyone representing LOC, I don't want to add to the confusion. It is to say that there are a lot of assumptions being made about this matter that may not be entirely correct. It's best to wait until someone actually looks at the complaint which is public record. That should shed some light on some of the issues raised here and offer the other side of the story, if there is one. Stay tuned!

 

+1

Many Nissan GTR fans were also under the misconception that the GTR's GPS reported back to Nissan whenever the car entered a race track. This is not true. The GPS is only a receiver and can "detect" when it is at a race track (to raise the speed limiter, etc...) but it does not report the car's location to anyone, and neither do the Lambos.

 

What year? Clean title? Nothing like a low mile '04 for oh, say, $39,500. A deal like that? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to disclose price publicly.