My question involves vehicle registration or title in the state of: South Carolina
My 2001 Grand Prix was purchased August 2009 from Garden City Auto Sales for $5500 with $2000 down. The car was financed by John Doe (private hard money financing 843-249-3491). I requested they transfer the plates from my 99 Audi. When I went to pay the taxes I was told the car was not titled to me. I contacted the dealership who said they would look into it and get back to me, a week later I called again and they said I would have to speak to John Doe’s offce. I contacted John Does’s office and advised them of the situation. During the summer of 2010 I wanted to sell the vehicle, but obviously couldn’t so instead I had to put over $1,000 into the car.
Long story short the car was just titled to me in June of 2011, 22 months after the initial purchase . I stopped making payments on the vehicle September 2010 because I wanted to give them some incentive to actually get the vehicle legally titled to me. At that time I owed a balance of $1230.00, however did not resume making payment when the title was straightened out because I was going to look into my legal options. I was told since they financed a vehicle without a title that I have legal recourse. Now I have been told the payoff is almost $1600.00, the vehicle is not worth that.
From what information I obtained during this mess, no one had a title! The car dealer never had the title which means the finance company never even saw a title when they financed the vehicle. I actually stopped driving the car for quite awhile because I could not obtain legal tags. I started contacting John Doe's office in June of 2010 after repeated calls to Garden City Auto sales (who went out of business June 2010) I called them every week or so for months. I had been told by the County tax office that there was nothing I could do to obtain the title it had to be requested by the lien holder.
Please help! This car is barely worth anything anymore. What am I legally obligated to pay?