I sold my very old car "as is" to someone last summer. I gave the slip of my ownership to the guy since he said he was going to do the ownership transfer on his own. I thought that was the end of the story.

Today, I got mail from Toronto Police notified me that the car was impounded and asked me whether I want to claim the vehicle ASAP as the storage fee is charged everyday. If the vehicle is not claimed, it shall be sold by provincial statute.

Then I realized that the guy did not transfer the ownership, used some random license plate and took it off before the car was towed.

Basically, I don't want to claim due to the cost of time and money (really old car by the way), even I am the owner technically. I'm wondering if it's going to affect anything on my side such as personal credit if I do so?

Any comment is appreciated.

The same thing happened to me. The impound company will claim that you owe them money. I never paid the impound company. Eventually collection agencies started calling me to get me to pay. They stopped calling after a year.

I would recommend not paying to get the car back, unless you want to try selling it again. Make sure to call the Ministry of Transportation to let them know that the car was sold. Also, if you wrote up a Bill of Sale, that is your proof that you sold the car in case you are taken to court. (You most likely won't be taken to court)

Keep an eye on your credit report just to make sure the bill for the impound company doesn't end up on it.

Alex321 wrote:

The same thing happened to me. The impound company will claim that you owe them money. I never paid the impound company. Eventually collection agencies started calling me to get me to pay. They stopped calling after a year.

I would recommend not paying to get the car back, unless you want to try selling it again. Make sure to call the Ministry of Transportation to let them know that the car was sold. Also, if you wrote up a Bill of Sale, that is your proof that you sold the car in case you are taken to court. (You most likely won't be taken to court)

Keep an eye on your credit report just to make sure the bill for the impound company doesn't end up on it.

Thank you very much for your comment.

Thanks for the information. I am getting the same problem. I will follow Alex321's advise.

You may also want to provide the proof-of-sale (whatever form it may be) to the police. This should help with the process as well...

I went to the police station and they did not have a clue and they did not seem care. They did not even want to tell me why the car was impounded.

My car was sold to a junk yard and it ended up the guy working for the junk yard got the car for himself. It all happened last month.

The impoundment happened on July 15. I got a police knocking on my door on July 16 asking if the car was stolen. I went to MTO the same day to mark the vehicle as "sold".

I got a Notice of Impoundment from MTO on July 18.

I went to the police station and they did not have a clue and they did not seem care. They suggested me to go to MTO office to ask. I also called the towing company. They said they did not care the status on the car. They were threating me blah blah blah.