Car dealership hasn't paid off loan on trade-in they accepted.

[BarbOurYear]

My jurisdiction is: California

My jurisdiction is: California

I hope this is the right forum ... here goes.
A month ago our son traded in his car on a used truck. The dealer STILL hasn't paid off the balance of the trade-in car ($3,900) and the regular monthly payment is coming due. GMAC, the finance co, says we are responsible for the monthly payment, even though we haven't had possession for 30 days, we have a signed contract trading in the car to the schlocky used car dealership, and our son has the truck they sold him.

Isn't a dealership required to pay off a trade-in vehicle within a certain period of time? Notify DMV and all that stuff? How can we put pressure on them? This doesn't seem legal to me.

Thanks for your help. If I'm in the wrong forum, could you let me know. I need help. Thank you.

 

[tpajet]

Call them up, tell and tell them they have 24 hours to make the payoff. Then call GMAC the next day and see if it's been done. If not, file a small claims suit for the whole amount due.

 

[BarbOurYear]

To TPAJet

Just wanted to say thank you for responding. It's so disheartening to pose a question and not get any advice. I appreciate your time!!

 

[jharris352]

24 hours may be a short window but I would definitely do something similar. I would send them a Certified letter indicating that they have failed to pay off your loan and that they have ten (10) business days to do so. Ten business days is a very common amount of time to cure a problem in statutes. If they fail to do so you go into small claims court well armed with a letter that shows you notified them of the problem and gave them an opportunity to fix that problem and they failed to.