I bought a car with fines, what should I do?

I bought a car with fines - what are the consequences and what to do?

Let's say you have your eye on the ideal option for buying a used car, you have checked all the bases and carefully examined it, and it seems to be perfectly clean. But there is a problem - when checking a car for fines by license plate, it turns out that there is a fine on it, and perhaps more than one. Or you already bought a car with fines, having learned about it later. And here the difference is important: before you registered the car with the traffic police, you learned about the presence of fines or after. Let's figure out what the risks are and what to do if you bought a car with traffic police fines for 2019!

To begin with, the most important thing is that fines are never issued to a car under any circumstances. Well, then the car would have to pay for them?! Fines are issued, of course, only per person - to the driver, and in cases where the violation is recorded by photo/video recording (on camera), then to the owner.

That is, the owner of the fine is always a person, not a car. But the resolution always indicates the car in which the offense was committed - its make, model and state license. numbers. This is exactly what allows you to find out traffic police fines in various online services by car number - this does not mean that the fines were issued for the car. This means that the listed violations were committed on this vehicle, which could have been committed by completely different drivers.

Thus, if you bought a car with traffic police fines, then the responsibility to pay these fines always lies with the person to whom they were issued (who is indicated as the person held accountable in the resolution). Such fines when purchasing a car (transferring ownership to another person) are never transferred to the buyer, and the buyer has no obligation to pay these fines.

There is an important nuance - if the fines went to the bailiffs, then they could impose a ban on registration of the car. Then it will not be possible to register such a car with the traffic police after purchasing it with fines.

How is such a ban imposed for 2019? The previous owner did not pay fines for traffic violations for a long time, as a result of which these fines went to the bailiffs. Those, if the owner for a long time and maliciously evaded paying fines, could impose a ban on registration of the car. This is a security measure that is designed to suspend any significant formal actions with a person’s property due to the fact that this property, due to debt to the state, may be auctioned off in the future.

And if you bought a car with fines, for which a registration ban was imposed, then you may already be in danger of being unable to register the car with the traffic police in your name and, as a result, drive on the roads of Russia. If you suddenly discovered that you bought a car with fines and a registration ban. action, then you should immediately return it to the previous owner with termination of the sales contract and a refund, of course. Moreover, in order to return the car, it is not necessary for the policy to state as a condition of such an agreement the absence of a ban on registration actions (although it would be better if it were spelled out).

You can also contact the previous owner and demand to pay all the fines, but the bailiffs will not lift the ban immediately after this - even if you knock on their doorsteps. In different cases, the time between paying all fines and lifting the ban can range from a week to several months. Agree, this is not a very bright prospect. If the seller refuses to take the car back and return the money, then the court will oblige him to do this, because he sold a car that is not usable and cannot be properly operated due to the prohibition of registration actions.

As a last resort, you can pay the fines of the purchased car by giving, so to speak, a bonus to the previous owner of the car. Especially if the amount of fines is small.

It will also not be possible to lift such a ban simply because you have become the new owner without paying fines - since the ban was imposed before the sale, and the sale was actually illegal, the FSSP service will not remove the encumbrance.

Is it possible to buy a car with fines? What to do if you have already purchased?

The presence of traffic police fines on a car when checked using its details does not mean anything. What matters is who received these sanctions. But if you are going to buy a car that has debts, then there is a risk of being left with nothing, and it is not remote enough. In the article we will find out whether and how to properly purchase a car with fines, what to do if you have already bought such a car and cannot register it, and also how to protect yourself from troubles.

The most important thing: there are no fines on your car!

So, the first thing we need to understand is that the car itself does not violate traffic rules and is not guilty of anything. All punishments as of 2019 are borne only by people:

the owner of the car in case of auto-recording by cameras, regardless of who was driving, and then the fine for the car is imposed according to its license plate number,
a driver when stopped by a traffic police inspector and identified by him as violating the Rules.

However, in the traffic police database, fines are recorded with reference not only to the driver or owner, but also to the car itself. Therefore, even after purchasing such a car, you can see that it has debts.

Is it possible to buy a car with fines?

Yes. But it's not that simple.

As we have already indicated above, all fines do not hang on the car, but on the driver or its owner with reference to this vehicle. Formally, it is the offender who is responsible for repaying the debt. And such debts have nothing to do with the buyer during the transfer of ownership.

Thus, it is possible to buy a car with fines. But there is an important subtlety - if interim measures have been imposed in connection with the debt of the previous owner, then problems may arise for you as a buyer.

As we know, if a person does not pay a traffic fine on time, the decision is handed over to the bailiffs for enforcement. Bailiffs, in turn, must be endowed by law with the right of influence to force payment of debts. And they have the following rights:

arrest - we will not touch upon this point in this article, since it is very rarely imposed directly for fines, but most often as an interim measure in judicial proceedings,
a ban on registration – and this is precisely what can be the main threat.

What is a ban?

This is a kind of response from the state to the failure of a guilty citizen to fulfill the obligation to pay a fine. If you do not pay the debt, then a restriction on registration actions appears on the car. It is produced by the traffic police on the initiative of the bailiffs.

That is, first 10 + 60 days pass for the voluntary payment of the fine, then the State Traffic Inspectorate has the right to transfer the case to the FSSP for forced execution of the decision. They initiate enforcement proceedings and, as one of the security measures, impose a registration ban.

And this is where the biggest risk lies if you plan to purchase a car with fines. Even a change in ownership under a purchase and sale agreement does not legally remove such a restriction from the car. This means that you will not be able to register the car until the previous owner pays such a fine.

But not every fine leads to a registration ban. Firstly, perhaps the deadline for voluntary payment has not yet passed. Secondly, even overdue financial sanctions do not always lead to a ban.

Below we will look at how to check for the presence of such a security measure on a machine. In the meantime, let's look at what to do if you have already purchased a vehicle and decided to check for sanctions.

Already purchased a car with fines - what to do?

If, after purchasing the car, you decided to check for debts of the old owner identified with the car, and they were discovered, then there is no need to panic.

You need to run to register it as soon as possible, since fines sooner or later may turn into a registration ban if you do not pay them.

Therefore, the next stage will be to check the presence of such prohibitions in order to find out immediately whether such a car can be registered with traffic police fines.

How to check restrictions?

That is why it is important before buying a car to check it not for fines, but specifically for a registration ban.

This is very easy to do on the official website of the traffic police. But to do this, you need to know the VIN of the car with fines that you are going to buy. It is indicated in the PTS, the vehicle registration certificate.

So, the instructions for checking for restrictions are quite simple.

If you do not have a VIN code, you can get it using your license plate number on a special website.
Next, go to the car check page on the official website of the State Traffic Inspectorate and paste the previously copied VIN code.
Scroll down to the very last block “Check for restrictions” and click on the “request verification” link. As a result, you will be given either the presence of a ban or arrests on the car, or you will see that the information was not found - this means that there are no bans on the car due to fines.

If there are no restrictions on the car, then it will look like this:

In this case, still find out whether it is possible to buy a car by checking the presence of fines on its owner; first, it is better to find out his driver’s license number. The fact is that even if there are no prohibitions at the moment, if there are fines in a couple of days - just when you conclude an agreement and come to register your car with the traffic police, they may suddenly appear. Pay attention to the date of the decision when checking - if more than 70 days have passed, then such fines are most likely overdue.

If there are prohibitions

In this case, the prospect, frankly speaking, is not the most rosy. There are 3 outcomes for you to be able to register a vehicle:

talk to the previous owner of the car so that he pays his fines,
pay off his debts,
file a lawsuit to terminate the purchase and sale agreement on the basis of inability to use the vehicle.

If everything is very clear with the first 3 points, then the last one contains the worst prospect for you, hidden in the shortcomings of the 2019 legislation.

The fact is that you can only file a claim for termination of the contract. Otherwise, you simply will not be satisfied - the court cannot force the seller to pay the fine, only through the bailiffs, and they are already “excited” by opening proceedings and imposing a ban.

And if you win the court, the contract will be terminated: you will be obliged to return the car, and the seller will be obliged to return the money for it. You will return the car - even if you do not want to do this, the bailiffs will be able to take it away easily. But if the seller no longer has the money you paid him, or any funds or property of his own, then you will wait for the money for a very long time - up to eternity.

Thus, you can find yourself in a paradoxical situation when you can buy a car with fines and restrictions on registration, but be left without money and without a car.

Therefore, the most reasonable options would be to either agree with the previous owner to pay off his fines, or pay them for him. And the last possibility is quite reasonable if we are talking about a fine of 500 rubles. But if the ban is imposed because of a loan of several million rubles, then this is already the saddest situation, from which, unfortunately, there is no way out.

The only thing that can be done in this situation is to file a lawsuit for termination, having previously found out in some way that the previous owner of the car has property. If there is such property, then along with the claim, petition for the seizure of such property so that he cannot get rid of it.

Important note!

This article provides basic information, but each case is different.
In 92% of all situations there are important nuances that can affect the outcome of the entire case.
An experienced lawyer will study all the materials of the case and indicate in which direction to move.

Therefore, our website employs on-duty legal consultants who delve into each case and are aimed at solving it.

or consult toll-free: 8 (499) 938-43-58 (Moscow), 8 (812) 425-13-31 (St. Petersburg), 8 (800) 350-14-83 (all of Russia).

Is it worth buying if the seller promises to pay fines?

Read again the previous subtlety about the presence of prohibitions and what consequences they have for the buyer. With the used car market as large as it is in 2019, you can safely forget about buying a car with a fine on its previous owner and simply choose another option.

But if you decide that it is worth considering the scheme proposed by the seller, then also remember the following nuances:

when money appears in larger amounts than usual, it goes away very quickly, and suddenly it may turn out that the seller will very soon have nothing to pay his fines,
even if he pays off his debts, lifting the ban is not a matter of one day (although, in rare cases, even one, but most often from several days to several months depending on the region and the specific branch of the FSSP), and you have 10 days to register registration - after this there will be a fine and the inability to drive a car,
and even if the bans are lifted, no one can guarantee that new ones will not appear immediately; It is illegal to impose restrictions on a car that no longer belongs to the seller, but this is often practiced due to imperfect interaction between departments.

Actions in case of purchasing a car with unpaid fines

What to do if you bought a car and there are fines on it? You found an excellent copy in technical terms, drew up a purchase and sale agreement and gave the money to the owner. However, when you want to register the car, it turns out that there are unpaid fines on it, and the traffic police officer refuses to register the car. How legal is this? Are there any sanctions for debts? Let's figure it out.

To begin with, the solution to the problem depends on whether the buyer knew about the debts or not. If payment of fines was one of the terms of the agreement that the parties agreed to, then returning the car and money will be problematic. If this fact was hidden, then everything is greatly simplified, and we will talk about solutions later.

First of all, you need to know that it is not the car that is punished with fines, but the owner. The person who was driving must pay the funds. If the violation was recorded automatically, the owner of the vehicle will have to pay a fine.

Considering the above, we can conclude that each fine is attributed to the person, but not to the machine. The vehicle’s details are recorded in the offense report, which allows it to be checked through various databases on the Internet. However, if we return to the employee’s refusal to register a car, then one thing is important here - it is illegal. Other people's debts should not be a reason for refusal to register. What happens when the former owner is a persistent defaulter? What if the party to the transaction was selling a car and knew that the car would not be able to be registered?

Algorithm of actions when prohibiting non-registration

As we have already found out, the fines themselves are not a serious problem, and therefore should not be a reason for refusing to buy a car, especially if it is in excellent condition. However, things are different when the bailiffs have imposed a registration ban on the car. This means that the new owner will not be able to register the purchased vehicle.

The procedure for imposing a ban is as follows: the owner violates traffic rules, for which fines are provided. However, he does not repay them on time. Further, debt collection will be forced, and therefore the bailiffs will apply a ban on registration actions.

So, if the car you sold has registration restrictions, what should you do in this case? There are several possible solutions here:

return of the car;
termination of the purchase and sale agreement through the court;
voluntary payment of fines by the previous owner;
payment of fines at your own expense.

The law provides for the right of a citizen to terminate the agreement and return the car if such circumstances become apparent. In this case, the previous owner is obliged to return the entire amount. It may also be that the owner refuses to do this and does not want to pay back the funds. Is it possible to somehow solve this situation? Yes, but for this you will have to involve the court. First, you need to draw up a statement of claim, indicating all the details of the contract and the problems associated with it. As a rule, the court sides with the buyer. The fact is that selling a car with registration restrictions means deliberately creating difficulties for the buyer, because it will not be possible to operate it. This method of solving the problem is possible, but its disadvantage is that it requires serious costs. If the court decides in favor of the buyer, then the seller can be demanded compensation for the money spent.

Important! Sometimes the previous owner does not want to complicate the situation, and therefore takes it upon himself to solve the problem. He is paying off all debts and is removing restrictions on registration. But you need to be prepared for the fact that this procedure may take 1-2 months.

After this is done, the new owner will be able to register the car. The last option is the most undesirable, because buying a used car implies the main expense item is precisely this. However, who wants to spend additional funds and pay off other people’s fines is a rhetorical question.

Is it possible to buy a car with fines? What to do if you have already purchased?

If, when checking the car using the details, fines are found, then you need to check who should pay them. If you decide to buy a car with debts, you risk being left without a car. Let's find out how to properly buy a car with fines. If a car with debts has already been purchased, then it will not be registered with the traffic police. How to protect yourself from problems?

There can be no fines on a car.

Firstly, you need to remember that a vehicle cannot independently violate traffic rules, so it is not at fault. Only the person is punished.

The owner of the car when a violation of the video recording system is detected. It doesn't matter who was driving. The decree is issued to the car by number.
The driver when he was stopped by a traffic police inspector with a violation.

But in the database, punishments are stored with reference to the car and driver. Therefore, after purchasing such a car, you may find unpaid fines.

Is it possible to buy a car with debts?

There are certain subtleties. The fines are not registered on the car, but on its owner. The person at fault must pay the debt. Therefore, the new owner is not obliged to pay fines for the other owner. But, if a ban is imposed due to the debt of the old owner, then the buyer may have problems.

If fines are not paid on time, the decision is sent to the bailiffs for execution. They can legally influence a person to pay in the following ways:

Arrest is rarely used; we will not describe it in detail.
Denying registration is the main method.

What does ban mean?

This is the reaction of government agencies to the fact that the fine is not paid by the guilty party. If the debt is not repaid, then a registration restriction is imposed on the car. The initiative comes from the bailiffs, and the limit is set by the traffic police inspector.

First, 10 days are given, then another 2 months for voluntary payment. Next, the traffic police can transfer the documents to the bailiffs for enforcement measures. They initiate enforcement proceedings, then impose a ban on registration.

This is the biggest risk if you want to buy a car with fines. If the owner of the car has changed, then the restriction remains on it. Therefore, you can register it only when the former owner pays all debts.

But not all fines threaten a registration ban. We need to figure out whether the time for voluntary payment has passed. Even overdue fines do not always lead to bans. Next, we’ll look at how to find out if there are restrictions on a car, and what to do if the car has already been purchased and you decide to check whether there are any debts on it.

What to do if you bought a car with fines

Don’t worry if, after purchasing a car, you discover old debts from other owners. There is no need to delay, but quickly register it with the traffic police. Fines can quickly become restrictions if they are not paid. Therefore, the next step is to check the restrictions on registering a car with fines.

How to check bans

It is important before the purchase and sale transaction to find out whether there is a restriction on the prohibition of registration, and not on the presence of fines. This can be done on the traffic police website, knowing the VIN number of the car. It can be found on the registration certificate or PTS.

Procedure:

If you were unable to find out the VIN number, you can determine it on special websites.
Then open the verification page on the traffic police website and use the VIN number you found.
Scroll down to the last section, “Check Restrictions,” and click “request review.” As a result, information about the presence of arrests or bans on the car will be displayed, or it will be indicated that “information not found.” This means that there are no debts on the car.

If there are no bans or arrests, it will be indicated as follows:

Then find out if you can buy the car anyway by checking the fines on the owner. Write down the number and series of its rights in advance. Even if there are no bans at this time, they may appear in a few days when you want to register the car with the traffic police. If the decision was made more than 70 days ago, then the fines are probably no longer valid.

If there are restrictions

In this case, things are not entirely good. There are 3 options in which you can register your car:

Talk to the previous owner so that he can pay off the outstanding fines.
Pay them instead.
File a lawsuit with a request to terminate the purchase and sale agreement due to the fact that you cannot drive the car and register it.

The first two points do not cause difficulties, but the last option may not work out, since the law has not been finalized. The question is that you can only submit an application to terminate the contract. But the judge will not be able to force the seller to pay off debts without bailiffs. And they have already initiated proceedings and prohibited the registration of the car.

If the lawsuit is won, the contract will be canceled and you must return the car in exchange for money. You will return the car, no matter voluntarily or through the bailiffs. But, if the former owner does not have the money, then you may have to wait a very long time for the amount to be returned for the car.

Therefore, it turns out to be some kind of paradox - the car was bought with fines and a ban, as a result you are left without a car and money. The most correct option would be to talk to the previous owner about paying off the debts, or to pay yourself. The last option also makes sense if the amount is small. But, if the restriction is imposed because of millions of debts, then it will no longer be possible to get out of this situation.

The only option in this case would be to file a lawsuit to terminate the contract. But you need to find out in advance what property the old owner has. If it exists, then in the statement of claim you must indicate a request to seize this property so that the owner does not get rid of it.

Is it worth buying a car if it has debts?

Remember the consequences that may occur due to prohibitions. There are a lot of used cars on the market, so it is better to look for another car. If you like the chosen car with debts, then do not forget about the following subtleties:

The seller can quickly spend the amount you paid, and there will be nothing to pay the fines with.
Even when a debt is cancelled, the ban sometimes takes several months to be lifted. But according to the law, only 10 days are given for registration, after which you will be fined and you will not be able to drive a car.
Even if existing bans are lifted, new ones may emerge. These actions, in violation of the law, are to impose bans on a vehicle that has already been sold and has a different owner. But this happens often, since different departments cannot interact correctly.

Before buying a car, carefully check the documents and any fines. It is better to choose the debt-free option.