Legal / YO question - re: outstanding bills

[Gingernags]

Are you as a livery yard owner, legally able to refuse to return property until outstanding monies have been paid?

Say an owner had more or less dumped a horse on you - you were therefore feeding it and looking after it and the owner never attended, but then sent someone to collect the horse months later and you still owe for its feed and livery charges (feed which another livery had been paying for rather than see the horse starve) - would you be within your rights to refuse to return the tack you had been keeping along with the horse?

What would you do if you then started getting threats from a third party re: involving the police, or saying "we know where you are?"

Just some hypothetical musings you understand...

 

[Berkeley]

Do you have a contract?

 

[DuckToller]

Been there, done it and got the t-shirt too.

Unless you have a written agreement with the livery, you are not legally entitled to withhold their property because it is theirs, regardless of unpaid bills. This is what I was told by police, two legal helplines and a proper solicitor.

If you have a written agreement, it has to state what is expected on both sides, so it needs to state that if the livery doesn't pay bills, you have the right to take ownership of the horse and sell it to pay the bills and refund the difference.

So if you have no written agreement, the only other way you can claim the horse is if you had a verbal agreement to the effect above, to which you can produce a witness (or two!). I went down this road, and matched threat for threat but it was very stressful and I would not want to do it again.

The police did make a point of suggesting that if a car owner tries to take his car after work has been done, then he is not entitled to as the car contains items (ie the replaced bits) that still technically belong to the garage.

One solicitor said I could try to claim part ownership of the horse along the lines of 'in lieument' - ie part of the horse belonged to me as I had paid for its food. However the solicitor did think this was a rather dubious route to take so it was going to be my last resort. Fortunately the owner wasn't the sort to take legal advice so I refused to let the horse go until the matter was sorted and I ended up buying the horse at an agreed rate just to stop the owner taking it away (she had abused him - long story!).

 

[Nailed]

The livery owner could.. techinically with hold the HORSE as payment..

Lou x

 

[Daisy11]

go to the citizen advice bureau
get them to send letters out to the owner in question if they do not reply ( maybe wrong) but i think the horse becomes your property if problem is not resolved

 

[Berkeley]

The three essential and basic elements of a contract are (i) Offer, (ii) Acceptance and (iii) Consideration (money they pay in return for your services).

Ideally a written agreement should be in place however if the three elements are satisfied a contract still exists (implied) and will contain implied terms of statute (its been a while but I think its Supply of Good and Services Act - (Sale of goods is for defective products so its not that)).

I would write a letter setting out your thoughts inline with the above and perhaps mention a potential claim for damages for breach of contract.

Most of the time letters suffice to give the non payer a kick up the backside. Now she might say 'pah! no chance' - but it shows what little she knows. You have rights, albeit very limited but she might not know that (as Llewellyn rightly stated). Litigation is never a great option - particularly for nominal amounts (I assume she doesn't owe thousands!) but the threat of it can sometimes pay dividends.

Does the owner still come down and ride? If so, have you thought about banning her from entering your premises and using your facilities - how can she see her horse if she can't come onto your land? maybe there's room for negotiation? It will be inequitable for her to argue that you are in breach as she has already rendered the contract void by not paying.

Yes you could claim that you own half the horse 'constructively' - but again, its a tricky on to fight.

 

[Gingernags]

The horse has already gone. YO let the horse be moved to a new home (someone "L" taking it on loan that the owner "A" arranged) rather than it run up more bills.

Its not a lot of money they owe, but someone else (T) is out of pocket as they had been feeding the horse their haylage and hard feed and looking after him, as he's getting on a bit and they didn't want him to starve or be totally neglected obviously. This was with the agreement of A who said they would give T money to cover the feed and haylage and bedding.

So horse has gone, money is outstanding for feed/haylage/straw and notice period that A was required to give, though I think YO will let A off with that part.

But the tack is still under lock and key and not to be released until A pays up for haylage and bedding etc.

Yet another person U who knows the owner, has been issuing threats to T who were looking after the horse, unpaid, and feeding it out of their pocket.

Messy huh?

I just think the owner is an ungrateful peice of work for abandoning her horse, leaving it to someone else to look after and feed and saying they'd re-imburse them, then taking the horse and leaving a broken hearted kid who'd been looking after it, and people who really can't afford it, out of pocket as they'd been feeding the horse and making sure it was still breathing - more than the owner cared to do.