Car Repossession – North Carolina USA

The following article is a very informative comment as a result of one personal experience in the area of car repossession courtesy of Donna Jay from North Carolina, USA, thanks again Donna


Some states vary in what the repo guys need to take your vehicle if you owe back payments on it. In North Carolina, they don’t need a court order but they do need an official form from the DMV that entitles the bank or finance company to legally authorize anyone they want (towing company, etc) to go get the vehicle.

Here is a link to the actual form but in case you can’t open the pdf file, it is MVR-3, an acronym for Motor Vehicle Report #3.
http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/forms/vehicleregistration/download/mvr3.pdf

If the towing company cannot show this form, they’ll tell you the form number…but if the towing company can’t produce this document, they CANNOT take your vehicle. You can then call the local police and ask them to come and intervene. Sometimes local police won’t because one they couldn’t be bothered with this, and two they sometimes err on the side of the bank if you haven’t made your payments and try to tell you just to give the car up.

Personally I would call the DMW, and ask for the Law Enforcement Division, or Theft and ask for an officer to come out to your home, that someone is trying to illegally take your car. Most of the time, and this is all the DMV officers do most of the time, is enforce that proper documentation is provided before a vehicle is repossessed.

I had a vehicle towed, towing company WOULD NOT give me the vehicle back even tho they weren’t provided with this form by the bank. The bank didn’t have a right to take the vehicle as it wasn’t registered by them as a title lien holder (which I might add, a LOT of banks or finance companies FORGET to do this paperwork, they must register as a title lien holder with the state your vehicle is registered in). So check with your local DMV office to see who is on your title as a lien holder first to see where you stand.

That arm yourself with that information and ask for authority. These Enforcement guys at the DMV believe it or not have MORE jurisdiction over the local Sheriff or police…they have STATE jurisdiction so it doesn’t matter that your car was taken in Iredell County and is now in Mecklenburg, these guys can cross county lines and enforce their laws are being followed. I got my car back…but I tell you…they were about to charge the owner and all the employees with car theft if they didn’t open the gates and drive my car out of their secured lot and it took almost 4 hours to get them to do that…the towing company just wasn’t going to do it till they got the okay from Capital One and Capital One wasn’t going to give permission.

I actually heard a conference call with the Director of lending with Capital One and the NC DMV, telling this Director that he couldn’t do what he did, he broke the law. Capital One actually asked the DMV Officer to take my car and hold it somewhere while they get this paperwork, he said he can’t do that. That they did an unlawful repo and MUST give the car back. That once they have the appropriate information and form, they can go get the vehicle then.

So check with your local DMV and check your title and make sure all is okay. Even one figure off on your title registration and you might be okay even if you fell behind in payments. Their loss is their stupidity but it’s better you hold the upper hand than them, then you can negotiate with them. The fees Capital One charges is awful, it’s highway robbery…no wonder people can’t make their payments, they fall behind and get zinged with fees, etc that they couldn’t afford BEFORE they fell behind…it’s a monopoly and quite frankly, it’s about time these finance companies got zinged back for all the fat bonuses they’ve been making off of the people they shouldn’t have given credit to begin with but they were too greedy.

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