- Jurisdiction
- Maine
Hi, my boyfriend sold my brother a car in November 2016. We made up an agreement which was not verified by any court or lawyer saying he would pay $300 when he first purchased the car,and would continue to make payments of $800 on the 30th of each month with a total of $3000. Please bare with me because this part will probably sound naive to some, but we have no knowledge about the legal process of selling cars. My boyfriend signed over the title to my brother immediatley because my brother told us this is the only way he could legally drive the car while making payments. (I still do not know for sure if this is true but have a feeling it is not). So we signed it over to him and he signed the paper stating he would pay. So to make a long story short, as soon as he got the car he gave us $600 total. Then he was saying it was a 'rust bucket' and had to put 100s of dollars into fixing it so he couldn't afford to pay us. Which the car was in good condition as far as i know, but it is in writing that he is buying the car "as is, and no warranties of any kind expressed or implied". Him being my brother, we said it was fine and to try to pay us asap. Then he started with excuses saying he has legal, phone, etc bills to pay that are more important than paying us. I have all of this as proof on facebook messenger. The legal bills he is speaking of are for a custody battle, which he finally told me was going on months before he purchased the car, so it seems to me like he knew he couldnt afford to pay and wanted to basically screw us over. I've tried cutting him breaks such as "if you give me 1500 by february I will let you have the car for 2000 instead of 3000". This is when he paid only 1000 and that was the last payment we saw from him. So of course we went back to what the agreement states and as of now he owes $1400 on the car and he has paid a total of $1600. I don't have the exact date or proof of the payments but i also have messages of both of us agreeing that was what he paid so far. Now he has cut off all contact with us and refuses to pay and stated that we owe him money the last time him and my boyfriend spoke. I'll also add that I explained to him that I sold him this car to make my rent/bills and his refusal to pay almost got us evicted from our apartment with my 2 yr old. I want to know if I can do anything about this since we were tricked into signing over the title. I've tried calling low income legal assistance but they say they cannot give us legal advice. I'm not sure whether it would be best to file a lawsuit for the money or the return of the car... I have a feeling he will not pay even if we win, and then I have a feeling he will destroy the car if he has to give it back