Screwy Car-Related Story

So, as I'm sure most people on here know, I have a 2002 Nissan Altima. When I leased it, I was still coming out of some credit issues, so my father co-signed on the lease for me. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.

My father and I also co-own a rental property that used to belong to my now-deceased grandmother. For a long time, the rents would be sent to my father's office (he owns a medical billing company along with being a physician himself) and his office staff would send me a check. When I got the new car, I told them to just pay the car payment out of the money they would otherwise be sending to me.

Late last year, my father lost a lawsuit over some business dealings unrelated to me. In the aftermath of that, he declared bankruptcy. I didn't think it would affect me in any way, really, so I didn't think anything of it.

Last night, I hear my car alarm going off, so I look out the window and my car is being towed away. It was being repossessed. I call to Nissam Motor Acceptance Corp reveals that no payment had been made since February.

So, I'm mad at my father or his people for not making the payment out of my half of Gran's duplex when the NMAC lady tells me that because a person on the lease declared bankruptcy, they quit sending bills. They say it's against the law to send bills out when a person is in bankruptcy. They said my father or I would've had to have requested bills be mailed in order to still get them, but since neither of us ever directly handled the bills, we didn't realize they had stopped coming, and since they never called me or sent me notice that I was behind (even though I'm not in bankruptcy), I never thought to check into it.

So now they want payment in full for the car (not just for the lease, I have to buy the car from them if I want it back). Since I was planning on getting rid of the car when the lease was up, I'm not too keen on now buying it and turn eight months worth of remaining payments into 48 or whatever.

I actually looked around town at Nissan Altimas of similar vintage and I can get one substantially the same as the one I had for $3,300 less than what Nissan wants out of me right now (and that's with lower mileage, no hail damage and an air conditioner that Courtesy Nissan didn't break). Plus, I kind of want to fight Nissan some more since I enjoyed the three months of yelling at them while my car was in the shop, so I think I'm going to let 'em keep my old car and get something new.

I know I'll eventually have to cough up the difference between what Nissan gets for my old vehicle and what I owed (or however that works), but I don't mind dragging it out since I don't like them.

So anyway, I know it's at least partially my fault for not keeping track of it and assuming the payment was being made. It was certainly my responsibility to make sure the bill was paid every month. But I would think that Nissan could've helped me out there and let me know the payments were behind before it became a crisis.

 

It's in both of our names. I was the lessee and my father was the co-lessee, and the registration was at my address in Plano while the bills went to the office in Amarillo.

 

A lot of it falls on me in the sense that I shouldn't expect people to do their jobs, I suppose, and constantly check up on them. Since the car payments weren't being made, my half the duplex rentals also weren't being paid to me. Actually, I guess that mailig the payment in is really not taking full responsibility. I mean, trusting the Post Office to deliver the payment? They might not do their jobs, either. I should always check up on them to make sure the payment was made.... As a matter of fact, I need to find a way to process the payment myself, too. I'm not taking full responsibility if I allow some flunky from Nissan to process the payment. They could transpose a number, and if they did, Nissan shouldn't be required to let me know of a problem. They should just take the car.

And I guess it's "pointing fingers" for me to only claim partial responsibility. It's all my fault that I assumed an arrangement that worked nearly perfectly for 2.5 years had suddenly stopped and that no one at Nissan would bother to inform me directly about a problem (despite the fact that early in the arrangement, the office lady once didn't pay the bill and sent me my check instead, and Nissan called and sent a letter letting me know the payment hadn't been made less than a week after the due date. This time, no word for over six months. My address hasn't changed. My phone number hasn't changed).

I suppose I should also go collect my half of the duplex rentals directly as well because you're irresponsible if you hire someone else to do something on your behalf.

And I did like the Nissan when I got to drive it. Since it was in the shop a whole lot, it was hard to enjoy it as much (and part of the time it was in the shop was when the payments weren't being made, and during that time, I was on the telephone with Nissan nearly every day. No word at all about a potential problem), and since it came back to me with things broken that weren't broken when it went in, I wasn't happy with the dealership, either.

(And when I say I was mad at my father, I meant that, until I talked to Nissan, I was mad at my father. I don't blame him for also not checking further into it when the bills stopped coming because he wouldn't have known anything about it, either. But until I knew that Nissan stopped sending the bills, the only way the payment wouldn't have been made was if my father directly told the office staff to quit paying the bills, which since it was my money that was being used to pay the bill, would've been quite the crappy thing to do, and sadly, not entirely out of character).

Now, I am trusting the software to make this post appear. I know I shouldn't do that, and I should find a way to get this posted physically myself rather than just pressing a button and trusting the software to do it correctly. But I'm irresponsible that way.