25 May 2008 12:00 AM:
Is there anyone out there who knows a lot about motor vehicle law? Perhaps María or Smiley, you may be able to offer me some advice.
At the beginning of December 2007 we asked our developers if they could find us a second-hand car. I need to make the point at this stage that we trusted them then and we still trust them now.
As it happened they knew of a Jeep for sale which, as we live down a muddy track, suited us perfectly. There was one problem; the vendor informed us that the car had an embargo on it of about 3,500 euros.
We agreed therefore to make a retention of the outstanding amount and I went to the Agencia Tributaria in Elda to make payment, only to be told I could do it at any bank, so this is what I did.
The Jeep turned out not to be as perfect as we thought insofar as it guzzled diesel and needed a few repairs. My partner also found that it gave him backache to drive long distances in it so recently we decided to trade it in for something more economical. As we also had a British RHD car to sell, we decided to approach one of the large garages with several branches who also deal in English cars. We were offered an acceptable deal against a Citroen Zsara, OK not a 4x4 but a lot more economical.
There was one slight hitch, namely that I still only had a justificante, not the permiso de circulación in my name. This was my third justificante and now nearly six months had gone by. The asesor told me when I collected the third one that I needed to be on the padrón. Why she couldn’t have told me this at the beginning I don’t know. Anyway, I got my certificate of empadronamiento, took it to the asesor.
Before we picked up the Citroen, I got a phone call from the accountant at the garage, saying they had done a search on the Jeep and it had an embargo. I said that I knew it had had one and that it was paid so I was asked to bring the receipt when we went to pick up the car.
We were half-way home from the garage in our new car when the accountant rang to say that the embargo I had paid dated from 2007, the one he had been talking about dated from 2004, and what was I going to do about it. He said they couldn’t tell how much it was for until 28 days had passed as it would take this long for the information to come through. He was expecting me to say that I would pay it, even though it could be anything from 1000€ to 30000€ plus interest and penalties accruing from 2004.
Needless to say we were devastated. I said that surely there was some confusion but the accountant said that the vendor, our developers and asesor had colluded to deceive us. When I asked to see the paperwork which proved that this embargo was still in force he asked if I was calling him a liar and hung up on me. He then rang back, did not apologise, but said he would fax the document but he hasn’t done so yet.
Our developers are mortified but nevertheless cannot understand how or even if this sort of thing can happen. They accompanied the vendor, an Englishman that they knew, with his interpreter, to the agencia tributaria to check out the car before I bought it. Nothing showed up apart from the embargo which I paid. They say that embargos roll from one year to the other and accumulate into a single charge, so that there cannot be something outstanding from 2004 if you’ve paid 2007. You wouldn’t be allowed to do that. I don’t know who to believe.
In the meantime, the developers and I have been to the asesor’s office and the paperwork for the jeep has arrived in my name. The garage accountant says the embargo will have been transferred into my name with the car, but the asesores say that they would not have been able to put the transfer through if there was still an embargo on the car.
The salesman at the garage did say that it is possible that you have to apply to have an embargo lifted after it has been paid and maybe this is what has happened. Is this true?
I should be enormously grateful if any of you can throw some light on this issue. If we really have been taken to the cleaners, it means we will be left with a jeep that we can’t sell and which at any moment could be re-possessed, although I would have thought that it would have happened by now.
Thread:
Embargos on Motor Vehicles
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