Q & A Table of Contents
I Helped Friends Buy/Sell A Car -- Am I Their Keeper?
From: Theresa, Cleveland, Ohio
Question: I have a friend that purchased a car from a co-worker of mine in late January of 2002. I introduced my friend and my co-worker to one another and within a week or two the car was sold.
It is now August and unbeknownst to me my friend never had the title transferred into his name. In the seven months that my friend has had the car, he has acquired two parking tickets. My co-worker was recently pulled over for running a red light and had to go through great lengths to prove the car and the tickets did not belong to him.
My co-worker has placed numerous calls to my friend's home and threatened to have the car reported stolen if my friend does not have the title transferred and the old plates returned to my co-worker. My friend thinks my co-worker is out of line by calling his home and harassing his family because he thinks it is not their business. My friend refuses to call my co-worker back and let him know when he plans to take care of changing the title.
My friend refuses to take responsibility. My friend doesn't seem to realize that he is the one that is going to lose in a big way if he sits around and does nothing to remedy the situation. I have talked to him about this but it seems all I have done is "preach" about it. I would like some hints or suggestions how to negotiate or present it to him in a different way that does not appear as though I am telling him what to do. Please help!
Response: Your story is yet another example of the risks one takes arranging business transactions between friends and/or colleagues. It may well be that when you introduced your friend to your co-worker, you had no idea the car would change hands. If that is the case, you shouldn't feel embarrassed or responsible. If you brought them together in order to get the car sold, then you have good reason to feel some degree of responsibility.
Your friend is exhibiting incredible irresponsibility. He is causing your co-worker grief and, in doing so, creating problems for you.
Your top interest in this particular circumstance revolves around your relationship with each of these people; what you need to do is determine which relationship is more important to you. You should also assess, as best you can, how important their relationship with you is to your friend and your co-worker.
>From the sounds of things, neither party behaved in a business-like way in the sale of the car. The seller should not have let the car leave his possession without having kept the title and the plates. The buyer was irresponsible in not bothering to fulfill his legal obligation to make sure the seller had the plates and title when the car changed hands. Your description of the situation makes it sound as if the buyer has demonstrated far less responsible behavior than the seller.
If it were me, I would question whether my relationship with the 'friend' was one I wanted to continue. If your friend needs you more than you need him, then you may have the capacity to push him towards wiser behavior. If that is not the case, your capacity to move him is slender -- and you and the co-worker need to have an honest talk about your role in this situation.
You may be able to help your co-worker get out from under this situation if you can discover any interests your friend may have in cleaning up his act. Perhaps you can do a better job of research on this issue than your co-worker can. Unless there is some way to motivate your friend to behave like an adult, I agree with him that all you are doing is 'preaching' to him -- and his use of that phrase makes it clear that he is not a believing member of your 'congregation'.
Barring some breakthrough in learning about interests that will motivate the friend to complete the transaction properly, I'm afraid your co-worker's best alternative is to look for legally focused ways to get the problem solved.
It is a crumby situation. I wish you luck extricating yourself and your co-worker from it.
Steve
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