warning......hire agreements

[MikeTM150]

Morning all, have been having an interesting couple of days, thought any of you out there who hire equipment either short or long term may want to be aware of this.

It all started with a letter from the DVLA informing me that a new V5 had been requested for one of my tractors and if this was correct to ignore the letter. As the tractor was on a long term hire i rang them to question the request. To cut a long story very short, the chap i had hired it to had taken it to a dealer and sold it. Seeing as i put GPS tracking on all new equipment (we've had alot stolen in last year or two!) it wasn't too difficult for me to locate the machine. Needless to say when i turned up in the dealer's yard and explained the situation he was none to happy. We got the police involved, which was an interesting experience, as they started off by saying that i had to prove i owned the machine or they couldn't do anything, and it seems a V5 doesn't cut it. So luckily when i produced a hire agreement which stated the hire period and terms and conditions and i demonstrated the GPS on the machine was linked to my phone, they agreed it was my machine.

 

The dealer now looking very pale said, what about my money? (bearing in mind the value was close to £110K). The police are currently investigating to try and locate the devious party, but have said ifi hadn't had a signed hire agreemnt it would have been a much longer saga to get my machinery back.

 

So make sure u have upto date and valid (ie T&C's and signatures!) hire agreement just in case someone pulls a fast one on you!

[easy-lift guy]

What a happy ending to a stolen property story. Thanks so much for sharing. Sounds like you covered all of the bases and came out on top. The GPS tracking system you had installed sure did pay for it's self this time around. Did you know the the person for very long who did the deed against you?. Sounds like the dealer is out on this deal, should have done a little more research before he bought stolen property!.

easy-lift guy

[renewablejohn]

I would say your very lucky but thinking about it you have been very professional in protecting your assets. Very well done.

[MikeTM150]

thankyou, well i thought i sort of knew the chap who hired it. Was recomended by a friend to him, which i then mistakenly thought he must know quite well, but actually only gave my number in the pub one night. So my fault on that front for not doing a bit more digging before hiring.

 

And paperwork is only like it is, as theft has been a problem and my insurance company suggested we ought to go through and check where we are with it. Hated it at time, all the B******t u have to put in it and time it takes, but glad i did now.

 

Father always said ur best lessons are from mistakes, and i've done alot of learning in my lifetime!!!

[antipesto]

I'm with easy-lift guy here. The dealer is a bit daft to pay for it with no v5, it's a bit like buying a stolen car for cash off a stranger with no documents. I think he will struggle to get his money back unless the thief is caught. It seems that the gps tracker has really payed for itself here

[PeteB]

Hmm........................An experienced dealer of equipment doling out a big chunk without any checks? Why do I feel that something is amiss? People in the trade can usually smell a bad deal from across the market square!

 

I'm glad you weren't taken for a complete ride and recovered your asset.

[MattyF]

Dealer deserved what he got got IMO.

[Daniël Bos]

is there no HPI check with this type of kit?

 

with cars - as soon as a search is flashed up as stolen its logged and every dealer has do his own checks - if not he is commiting fraud as well as the grifter.

 

If the dealer checked all he could check he still would not have found it to be stolen, because it wasn't marked as such.

Think about it, the "bargain" (bargain hunt....) hires the tractor and presents himself to the dealer as the owner that has lost his papers. The dealer can maybe find out who the owner is, name address etc but what if the bargain said that was him, he has the same details on his hire agreement? No records have passport pics on. Only if the dealer paid out before getting the papers sorted did he go wrong, and he'll pay for that it seems.....

[MikeTM150]

If the dealer checked all he could check he still would not have found it to be stolen, because it wasn't marked as such.

Think about it, the "bargain" (bargain hunt....) hires the tractor and presents himself to the dealer as the owner that has lost his papers. The dealer can maybe find out who the owner is, name address etc but what if the bargain said that was him, he has the same details on his hire agreement? No records have passport pics on. Only if the dealer paid out before getting the papers sorted did he go wrong, and he'll pay for that it seems.....

 

This is exactly what the chap did, dealer did his checks and because its a 'private hire' and not 'lease hire' it wouldn't show up on any of the checks. But i'm still at beggers belief that the dealer bought a tractor of that value from someone he didn't know. I know i wouldn't have!

 

I'd like to be a fly on the wall if the chap walks back into the dealers office with another 'bargain'!!!

[djbobbins]

Well done for protecting your assets from this "bargain".

 

Sadly I guess he's got the nous not to go back to the same dealer again, and assuming he got the wedge in cash (or cash-like) then it's probably going to be hard to trace for the plod.

 

Got to agree with some of the sentiment in the comments about the dealer though, if they laid out close to six figures without seeing documents, it does make me wonder whether it wasn't the first time. Still, I guess they'll learn their lesson out of it too.

 

Out of interest, assuming the worst had happened and you'd lost the machine, would you have been insured? You mention insurance against theft but not necessarily for items that were on hire; I'm just curious how the insurers look at that kind of thing.