Sold a car, then it was towed
Location: Michigan.
My girlfriend and I live in Michigan. We owned a 2009 Chevy Malibu for a couple of years.
We bought her a new car and decided to sell the Malibu.
Sold it to a relative who typically strips cars for good parts, sells the good parts and then scraps the cars. We had sold him a couple other cars in the past without issue.
Anyway, sold him this car in 2024. He apparently then resold it to someone else relatively quickly. He did not transfer the title to his own name. The people he sold it to did not transfer it to their name. They then left it dilapidated on the side of the road somewhere and the vin number was traced back to us as it had not been transferred to anyone else’s name. This was in February 2026.
We get a ticket in the mail in March of 2026. Call the courthouse. They seem mostly understanding. They give us the phone number of the officer who wrote the ticket. We contact him. He says he will take care of everything. Tells us to call the courthouse back and inform them. We do that. They tell us the case is dropped and not even in their system anymore. We call the officer back and he tells us he will take care of the towing company who towed the car.
So that’s that. Or so we thought.
We got a letter in the mail in May from a collections agency saying we are being taken to collections for an unpaid towing bill. We never received a towing bill in the first place, let alone did not pay one.
I contacted collections. They said we need written proof from the officer and the court house and the relative we sold the vehicle to for this to be dropped.
Obviously we are unable to obtain these things.
Now 6 months later I just received a notice from my credit report that I have a collections notice on my report and it ranked my credit score.
The letter we received from collections in May said the original towing bill was for approximately $170. Now we are being taken to collections for $700 for a towing bill we never received, for a car we no longer owned when it was towed.
In Michigan we are unable to transfer vehicles out of our own names at the DMV/Secretary of States. The person you sold it to has to transfer it into their name for it to come out of your name. We did not get a bill of sale when we sold it to our relative, as I suppose we didn’t think we needed to do that with it being a family member we trusted. But also, I believe the law in Michigan is that you have to hold onto a bill of sale for 1 year. After that you can shred it/throw it away.
Maybe this isn’t a legal thing, but if anyone has any experience or knowledge in this matter, we would appreciate hearing what you have to say.