eddie snax:
Own Account Driver:
So in summary it always makes sense to hold on to assets, not criminally stolen and a civil matter, unless forced to do otherwise only by court order and don’t go out of your way to assist anyone.
The hire co and the subbies who’ve presumably got the trailers, are just both unsecured creditors, one lot’s owed a trailer the other some money. I’ve no interest in assisting one side over the other.
I’m not going to profess to know the law with regards to title off ownership, asset accountability, the position off the official receivers (as I believe the people who wind up companies are called) with regard to the return property not under the ownership off the insolvent party, in this case hired equipment. But it seems strange to Me that you suggest that it is legal for a 3rd party, that being another creditor, but not the owner off the hired equipment to withhold the return off the said property, to the legal owner. Or for that matter that the official receiver would have the legal right to withhold the return off hired equipment to its rightful owner. I would understand, that if a creditor had equipment owned by a company which had gone bust, that the creditor might use that equipment to reduce his loses from the insolvent party.
Sometimes the legal rights just don’t make sense.
As for your scenario with work carried out on a Vehicle, not under the instruction off the owner but a 3rd party, then would not your issue be with the 3rd party, and not the owner. If you refused to return the Vehicle to its owner or returned it incomplete, I’d have thought that the Owner would have an open and shut case for damages, that would probably be more costly than just returning the vehicle complete and arguing about it later 
I’m not trying to be clever, I’m just a bit surprised at the inference in your post 
Ok, without going too much into it. I have, in the past, been involved in uplifting kit in repos/snatchbacks. What you would always try to do is ■■■■■■ the stuff back when the payments were in arrears, so the contract breached but, before an administrator was appointed, as the administrators have powers to hold on to the kit. Having said that I did forcibly ■■■■■■ back a forklift, I’d paid for but hadn’t been delivered, from a warehouse where the administrators were actually present and they threatened all kinds of things, and legally I was probably not entitled to take it, at that juncture, but nothing was ever heard of.
These people who pay for sofas then the firm goes bust before they’re delivered my gut is, it would be the same, if they went mobhanded and snatched the sofa and took it home any sort of legal action would never go anywhere.
The administrators can’t be trusted they often make noises they’ll let you have some of your stock for instance, that’s not been paid for, you have title in back and then it turns out they’ve sold it off cheap to line their own pockets.
With the vehicle repair you have acted in good faith and you would argue the person who brought it in was acting as an agent of the owner. Bringing a case for damages would be firstly expensive and secondly you would argue the owner failed to mitigate their losses by simply paying for the work that was done and pursuing the person who brought the car.
J/K
