Quote:
Originally Posted by The Real MSH!
2 years ago, I looked at buying a left hand drive Audi. The 'owner' had a UK mobile number, and a UK email address with an 'english' name. The reality was something very different. The story was something like- He was from one of the baltic states; the car had previously been owned by a friend of his. The friend had owed him money for work done on the car; The owner had then returned east, supposedly handing the car over to clear his 'debt'. there was no documentation.
It was all a little suspicious.
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Presuming you're talking about car registered in lithuania or latvia, not UK, of course, there never is any "documentation" except technical passport and pair of licence plates.
For example, the proof that I'm the owner of my A90 is this little piece of laminated paper + respective entries in CSDD database. Of course, to register car, registered here, on your name in UK, presuming DVLA, or what was the name of organisation, which does it in UK, won't ignore everything and will require transit plates and proof of purchase, would be more difficult - you would have to go to the respective country, find the owner written in technical passport, go and register the change of ownership and change licence plates. The car probably wouldn't have to be present, at least it is not required when simple change of ownership is registered.
But as for suspicious sale - over here it is quite common to sell old cars without registering change of ownership, as, unlike in UK, where everything has to be followed by loads of paper, here you can still insure and inspect a car not owned by you, provided the owner pays all his traffic violations and has not been sued and all property confiscated. Actually, it's not uncommon that when someone buys crappy B2 quattro for restoration, in order to register it on his name, he has to go trough long owner finding process, and often the owner even is unaware that the car still exists
I remember one case that the owner had given away his damaged B2 quattro to some repair shop either for spares or scrap 10 years ago, and was surprised to find out the existance and continued use of the very same car