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YES and no additional charges. She was not in any fault.

I am not up to date on USA laws for repo's but I can tell you this about Canada........

I can take the property from wherever it is. The "owner's" property, his brother's property, his friend's property or anywhere I find the item/car. The Repo paperwork is in fact a legal warrant to seize the item.

Even if it is hidden in a garage, as long as I have reasonable suspicion that the item is in the garage, I had the legal authority to break into the garage and take it. I only once had to do this and it wouldn't have happened unless I was certain the item was in the garage. It so happened there was a window in the garage that I could see the Snowmobile in the garage and just as we were about to break into it, the "owner" came out of the house and unlocked the garage for us.

A little more........

Where it really gets sad is when you have to repo a car from a person who is actually making the payments on time and thinks everything is OK..........

How is this possible? Third party........

I had to repo a car from a young woman who was paying on time and had no idea why I was there.

She had bought the car from a used car dealer who had not checked liens before selling it. Her bank had also not checked liens before giving her the loan. The original lender issued a repo order and even gave the lady's name and address (current registration).

When I talked to her and explained the situation to her, she broke down in tears and was really shook up about it. I was not required to make any calls or wait for calls to be made, but in this case I told her to call her lender and tell them what is happening while I wait. She did and I spoke to her lender and explained the problem and they talked to her again and told her to give me the car and they would straighten it out. I took the car and went on my way.

In the end, her lender sued the dealer who sold the car to her as local laws required the used car dealer to run a lien check on all cars before being sold. The lady's bank won and the used car dealer paid off the loan and then went after the guy that sold the car to them. I never heard what happened after that.

suthdj wrote:Ok, another what if, what if a burglar busts through your front door loudly announcing themselves as police. and you do not engage but instead drop your weapon and raise your hands while the BG proceeds to put a round in you or you engage and it really is the police.

I think this question should be asked in a separate thread. Also, a search will result in many previous discussions on this topic.

Here's a little bit more info that may not generally be known......

When your car is repo'ed it is taken to a storage facility (impound yard) that is usually a garage or dealer or whatever (secure area contracted by the Lender).

You have a period of time to catch up your missed payments and pay storage fees/towing fees (if it was towed) and any other lender fees associated with the Repo (repo fees) and you can have the car back. This period of time may vary from State to State but where I worked it was 45 days. After 45 days, if you had not settled with the lender and received the car back, it goes on the auction block and is sold to the highest bidder. Then the lender will often bill you for the difference in what you owed and the amount received at auction. Sometimes they drop this, sometimes they don't. Depends on the lender. They can tie you up in Court and eventually get a judgment against you for the balance.

I can almost guarantee you that if you shoot and kill a repo man during his legal repossession of the vehicle, you will be charged with murder and face the ramifications.

You might want to also consider that if you pull a gun on a repo man (without the intent to shoot) that he too might be armed and you may get shot yourself. In this case the repo man would be cleared of any wrong doing as he was acting in the legal performance of his duty and shot you because he was in fear of his life.

Big things to think about for sure.........
Where I was a Repo man, there were very few guns of any kind and no CC (Canada). So, I really didn't have to deal with these issues.

I simply located the car and if it was at the "owner's" residence I would knock on the door and talk to them and give them the opportunity to take any personal possessions out of the car, give me the keys and I drive away. If they did not agree to that, I would tell them that I would call a tow truck and they would pay for that too and all of their neighbors would know what was going on. If it escalated any further, I would call the police who would respond to assist.

If they don't answer the door, call the tow truck. If they come out, try to talk to them and if they are non compliant, call the police.

If they are hiding the car someplace, use investigative techniques to locate the car. Sometimes it would be taken from a parking lot by simply calling a tow truck.

Hope this helps and you can see that escalating the situation is not the best thing to do for either party.

It's not "your" car until you complete the terms of the loan. You can call it "your" car, but you do not own it.

Same thing as your house. Really tickles me to watch HGTV and see new home buyers after closing say something like "I am now a home owner". In reality the Bank is the new home owner until it is paid off.

I was actually a REPO man for a period of time (not in the USA) and I can tell you there is nothing "shady" about it. The things you see on the TV series are for excitement and not the norm. The only thing "shady" about it is having to track down the location of the car when the "owner" is hiding it. Once the car is located, it is taken either by reasonable discussion or with assistance from the local police as necessary.