Can a &quot;repo man&quot; be arrested and charged for repossessing the wrong car (or other asset) Is it a crime for a repo man to accidentally repo the wrong car? I'm sure at least occasionally they'd repo the wrong car. The bank (or whoever owned the loan) had already sent notices and tried other options. They had to do quite a bit of detective work to find the owner. The owner had also gotten plenty of notices in the mail and probably a visit from someone trying to collect, so they were already on the lookout. Simply by the law of averages, a couple of mistakes have to happen. My question is What happens when a car that is legally owned by someone is &quot;repossessed&quot;? Is the repo man charged with theft? What happens to personal items in the car? For example, a laptop in a book-bag. How does the rightful owner go about getting the car back? Do they file a police report? Are there special statutes that protect repo men from honest mistakes? There were several popular &quot;repo shows&quot; in the early 2000s. Most of them were staged, but I believe some showed real repos, at least at first. I believe most of the shows filmed in Florida or California. I don't doubt sometimes repo men played a bit fast and loose with the rules. Repo was generally the final option after notices and visits from collectors had failed.
Is it a crime for a repo man to accidentally repo the wrong car? Not unless the car was retained after the accidental repossession was discovered, and then, only by the person retaining it (as the repo man may have turned over the car to the creditor whose loan on a similar car is in default). Generally speaking, taking property of another with an intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property of it is a crime only if one knows that the property is the property of another. For example, if two people leave black umbrellas in an entry room and someone accidentally leaves with the wrong one, the taking of the wrong umbrella is not a crime. Whether the repo man's assertion that he accidentally took the wrong car is credible is a question of fact to be determined at trial, if the prosecution doubts him. If he was supposed to repossess a 1936 Ford and he repossessed a 2021 Tesla, the repo man is probably going to lose and be convicted of theft. If he was supposed to repossess a white 2021 Tesla and he repossessed a different white 2021 Tesla in the same neighborhood with a license plate from the same state as the one he was supposed to repossess, he has a very good chance of prevailing. However, once someone learns that they have taken the wrong property, they have a duty to return the property promptly to the owner upon request, and probably, to notify the owner (if the owner can be determined) and the authorities who were informed that a different vehicle was taken, promptly. Otherwise, the originally good faith mistake becomes theft. If the repo man's explanation is convincing, he is not likely to be charged with theft, even though no special law applies. What makes the repo man special is that he did have permission from the secured car loan creditor to repossess it due to the secured car loan debtor's default by the Uniform Commercial Code. If he had taken the right car without a breach of the peace, the Uniform Commercial Code would have absolved him of liability and given him legal permission to do so. If the repo had been of the right car, the creditor would have had a duty to promptly return the personal possession in the car in which it did not have a lien to the rightful owner. This conclusion doesn't change when the repo man accidentally takes the wrong car. While the repo man's mistake was not knowing or intentional, it was probably negligent to repossess the car without carefully confirming the VIN number and license plate to make sure that he was repossessing the correct car. As a result, the car own probably has a claim against both the repo man (whose negligence caused the wrongful repossession) and the creditor (for whom he was acting as an agent to repossess the car) for any damages caused to the owner of the wrongfully repossessed car, including damages to the vehicle and damages from loss of use of the car and possibly damages for emotional distress caused by thinking that his car had been stolen or by missing a non-economic opportunity that he could have had if the car had not been wrongfully taken (e.g. if this caused the car owner to miss the funeral of the car owner's father). The creditor and the repo man probably have insurance policies in place that cover legal defense of such claims and also economic settlements or money judgments entered on that kind of claim.
Broadly speaking, theft offences in common law jurisdictions are defined as the dishonest appropriation of property that belongs to another with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it, without proper authority (e.g. permission or legal right to do that). Appropriation means the assumption of the rights of ownership of the property, i.e. behaving as if you were now its owner, not simply or solely the taking of the property. Possible defences include absence of intent to deprive the rightful owner of the property and intent to search for the rightful owner of the property and return it to them. You say: The facts are presented as follows: One day, couple wakes up to $120,000 extra dollars due to teller error. The money was intended for a business. They are aware that this must be an error but spend the money anyway. The bank wants the money back. The couple quits talking to the bank. The couple is charged with theft and receiving stolen property. I don't know about the charge of receiving stolen property (unless that relates to how they transferred or spent the money) but on the facts presented it's certainly prima facie theft. Reportedly, by their own admissions they found money in their account that wasn't theirs, they knew it wasn't theirs and they spent it.
No. This would not be illegal. You are not trespassing or breaking and entering since you have permission to be on the premises, and you are the rightful owner of the guitar so you are not depriving him of property that belongs to him. If you did this with the assistance of a law enforcement officer, rather than Bob's family, without a court order describing the property to be retrieved, this would be called a "civil assist". If the guitar were collateral for a loan, it would be a self-help "repossession" (a.k.a. "repo") authorized by the Uniform Commercial Code if it could be accomplished without a breach of the peace, and it would not require a court order. If you did this pursuant to a court order the case you brought to retrieve the guitar would be called a "replevin action" and you would also need to obtain a "writ of assistance" to authorize a trespass in the presence of law enforcement to retrieve the guitar. Also, Bob would still be be guilty of the crime of theft of the guitar, even though you got it back, because he took it with an intent to permanently deprive you, its owner, of the property that belongs to you. You could also probably sue him for conversion or "civil theft" in some jurisdictions, but your damages would be nominal except for punitive or statutory damages under a civil theft statute, because you ultimately got the guitar back, and so you suffered only minimal economic harm.
A car loan is technically called a &quot;secured debt&quot; and some states have a law called &quot;defrauding a secured creditor&quot;, or something similar, that can cause mere failure to pay a debt or to voluntarily deliver the collateral to the creditor to become a type of theft or another crime in some circumstances. Usually, even then, there must be evidence of an intent to defraud the creditor and not merely an intent to fail to perform a promise to a creditor. For example, in Colorado there is a criminal offense entitled &quot;Concealment or removal of secured property&quot; at Colorado Revised Statutes § 18-5-504 which states: If a person who has given a security interest in personal property, as security interest is defined in section 4-1-201(b)(35), C.R.S ., or other person with actual knowledge of the security interest, during the existence of the security interest, knowingly conceals or removes the encumbered property from the state of Colorado without written consent of the secured creditor, the person commits a class 5 felony where the value of the property concealed or removed is one thousand dollars or more. Where the value of the property concealed or removed is less than one thousand dollars, the person commits a class 1 misdemeanor. But, the default position at common law and under the Uniform Commercial Code, is that merely passively not paying a debt or passively not turning over collateral for debt to a creditor is not a crime.
From a comment on the question: They did damage the trailer door and headlight is smashed This seems like the best thing to focus on, especially if you can show that it was not damaged before they towed it. The unusual method of towing (with video evidence) may be a factor in whether they are considered negligent. If the damage to the door looks like they caused it directly by breaking in, that would also help your case. You also asked in your comment if you should go to the police or to a lawyer first. Might as well go to the lawyer and see what they tell you to do. I'm not sure what the police would do if there is no clear crime that has been committed. (The lawyer should have better advice about whether/why to go to the police.)
How far can one go to defend him/herself from an unreasonable search and seizures, in the same sense of one defending him/herself from an unlawful arrest? Not very far. Basically all you can do is try to talk the officer out of it. He thinks he sees evidence in sight... If the police officer reasonably believes that there is evidence of a crime in plain view, then the officer can proceed to seize the evidence. If the property owner tries to use force to prevent the seizure, then the officer can arrest the property owner. ... the property owner ... highly believes there is no possible way he could have seen the evidence from outside his property. It doesn't matter what the owner believes (unless the owner can somehow convince the officer before the search). What matters is what the court believes. But the owner cannot bring the matter to court before the officer enters the shed. If the officer insists on entering the shed and the owner can establish in court that the officer couldn't see the evidence and that there was no other lawful basis for a warrantless search or seizure, then the evidence will be inadmissible. The owner might also be able to prevail in a civil suit for the violation of civil rights, but the bar for such a suit is very high, so the likelihood is very small.
united-states In the US, the default rule is that your home is your castle. In general, nobody, not even the police, can enter your home without your permission. The main exception to this rule is that police do not need your permission if they have a search warrant to search your home. To get a warrant, the police must convince a magistrate that they have good reason (ie, &quot;probable cause&quot;), such as a gps track, to believe they will find evidence of a crime if they search the house. The police in your hypothetical are in a similar situation to police who are tracking the gps signal from a &quot;bait car/bike/phone/tablet/package.&quot; (A bait car is a car/etc that has been fitted with a camera and gps tracker, and left out as bait for thieves.) As long as the car is in public view, the police do not need a warrant to search it and arrest the person driving it. However, once the bait car is out of public view, where the police can no longer see it, they need a warrant to go in and recover it, even if they can see it on the tracker. (See, for example, the instructions for bait car programs from the Eugene and Reno Police Departments.) (For phones, which may not be in &quot;plain view&quot; even if the thief is, the police use ring programs to make the phone ring. Hearing a phone respond to a ring program gives them probable cause under the &quot;hearing&quot; version of the &quot;plain view&quot; doctrine.) Bottom line: In the US, the police need a search warrant. Since search warrants take time and effort, police may be unwilling to get a warrant for something as low valued as a phone. If the police can't or won't help, there are various options for privately enforcing one's rights. These range from the legal -- knocking on the door and confronting the thief -- to the illegal -- left to your imagination.
The legal system is set up to alleviate the problem or conundrum of intimidation by perpetrators. In the US criminal system, the State is the plaintiff, not the individual. In the extant described situation, very likely all you would have to do is sign an affidavit that the recovered phone is your phone, and that it was removed from your possession by unknown means on or about a certain date. From your description given here you don't know if it was stolen...you appear to have perhaps dropped it or left it somewhere, and someone picked it up/found it. Clearly it didn't belong to them, but this is more like "recovered lost property" rather than "received stolen property." The craigslist poster might be entirely un-chargeable with a crime, though they might have to give up the phone to you.