Barn Find Legalities

[squirrel_hunter]

Just wondering really the concept of Barn Finds and the legal implications. Suppose you buy a barn and in side it there is a motorbike, who owns it?

The first port of call would be the DVLA who could provide registered keepers details. But as I think has been previously discussed that may not been the legal owner. Do you have to contact them or make reasonable attempts to?

Now what happens if the DVLA has no record of it? If the bike was far to old with the keepers details long since vanishing, or if the bike was never registered such as a race bike?

Now further consider, you stick a bike into storage, but for what ever reason stop paying the storage fees. The storage company has a clause that they can take the contents and sell it to recover their costs which they do. Sometime later you discover they have sold your bike on, do you have any recourse to the now new owner?

Just wondering...

I suspect the second part may have something to do with lien, but I am no substitute for legal advice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost,_m...doned_property

It's American but English law is very similar.

On sale by a bailee - no of course you don't. See Sale of Goods Act 1979 sections 39 and 41.

On the last question - arrgh - the passing of title rules in sections 21 to 25 SOGA are fraught with difficulty. The question more usually comes up in hire purchase, where goods - typically a car - are on hire purchase and the hirer sells them without paying off the HP company. Does the buyer acquire a good title? - yes as long as you can prove that yu bought in good faith and without notice. In fact I won on this point in Bromley County Court over my mum's old Triumph Acclaim, which it turned out had outstanding HP and she had no idea that the seller had HP on it.

So come on, tell all! What bike have you found in a barn?

[squirrel_hunter]

Originally Posted by sam hagger

So come on, tell all! What bike have you found in a barn?

Nothing... Exactly...

Ed, its more of the last question that I'd be interested in, the difficult one. But it did get me interested in the other parts so I presume then a Barn Find would be treated as Abandoned Property in the most part going to whoever finds it first?

I think the easiest thing here is to go for the exact example that got me questioning it as I'm not going to buy it. I was just browsing eBay and stumbled across an auction for a Honda 125 Race Bike. The seller doesn't know what he's looking at, I'm not an expert either but its a Honda RS125 or RS250, very nice if you pick it up for peanuts.

Anyway it was the bit about the owner not paying his storage bill that got me wondering. So I called up and asked. The short story is there is a clause in the storage contract that says 'no payment they take ownership to recover costs'. Which is what happened here, they have tried to contact the owner but with no luck so after a number of months of non contact or payment they are selling it on eBay.

The thing is a vehicle is a little different to say a TV where people actually record the serial numbers so can in theory be traced. Suppose you buy it and then the person who owned it when it went into storage wants it back, would they have a claim to it?

[gruntygiggles]

Well, the contract I signed when I used storage for the house move stated that after a set time of nn-payment and non-contact, the legal owenrship of the contents of the storage would be passed to the storage company in order for them to sell the goods and recver the costs.

Call and ask if they have had the owners signature on something like this. If they do, the owner should have no recourse....but I say "should"...I do not have eny legal knowledge to impart

I know of a two folk who inherited an old car in the garage of a house, they both restored it to former glory and kept it, but don't know how that came about.

Just had a friend over who thinks its a proper racing bike, its a twin 125cc so a 250cc in total ?

Does that make the SV a 1300 then