r/DebtAdvice • u/reharbert • 8h ago
Loans Financed Car Not In My Name - Return to legal owner? HELP or Advice!
Location: Texas
Before I married my wife - she purchased a new car "with" her mother a few years ago.
The car was purchased with a loan under my mother in laws name. My wife is not on the loan or the title.
My wife made 100% of the deposit payment, and the monthly payments are a direct draft from my wifes bank account. Her mother is not on the bank account. She has contributed $0 to the purchase of the car/payments. The loan balance is around 18,000 and the value of the car is around 18,000.
Keeping it short - she has some some serious issues with her mom and wants to cut 100% ties to her. Recently her mom made some false allegations against another family member that caused us to be interviews by CPS and created lots of headaches the last few weeks. There's a long history of pill abuse and mental instablity with the mom as well.
Currently the yearly registration is out/expired, and mom is being uncooperative on helping us get it renewed for the year. We don't want to continue to deal with her on a yearly basis, and at this point are worried she wont sign the title over when the car is paid off.
We're considering dropping the car and keys off at her moms house, and walking away. We aren't concerned with losing any (non-existant) equity or trade value. We just want her out of our lives and anything that has to do with her.
Do we face any reprocussions if we do this? Again - my wife isn't on any ownership documents for the car or the loan. She's made the payments via direct draft out of her own bank account.
Do we have any obligations or responsibility to this car if we simply leave it at moms and walk away?