How to Get Your Car Back After It Has Been Repossessed in Pennsylvania
- 1). Contact the creditor as soon as possible after repossession to confirm it has your current address. The MVSFA dictates that the creditor must give you a written "notice of repossession" immediately after taking possession of the vehicle. This notice will be delivered to you in person or by certified mail to your last known address. Without this notice, you will not have the information needed to reclaim your vehicle.
- 2). Read over the notice of repossession. By law, the creditor must disclose in this notice whether it is extending the privilege of redemption or reinstatement, the amount required to redeem the vehicle, where the vehicle is being held, to whom you should remit payment and the means by which the creditor plans to resell the vehicle.
- 3). Go to where the vehicle is being held and reclaim your personal possessions that were inside when it was repossessed. The MVSFA states that the holder of the vehicle must allow you 30 days to gather any personal effects. After 30 days, those items become the property of the holder or creditor and can be disposed of as needed.
Though reclaiming the vehicle may take time or even be impossible, important documents, CDs, personal photos, clothing or accessories you added after purchase, such as a GPS, can be claimed immediately when you provide identification and a copy of the notice of repossession. - 4). Remit the entire past-due amount, plus additional costs, to the payee set forth in the notice of repossession. According to the MVSFA, your finance contract may allow you, at best, the opportunity to reinstate the contract and resume a payment schedule as long as you pay all past-due payments, the costs that the creditor has itemized for repossessing and storing the vehicle, and legal and administrative fees the creditor incurred to process the notice.
- 5). If your contract does not provide the privilege of reinstatement, you will have to pay the entire outstanding balance of the loan plus the additional fees to the payee set forth in the notice. After you have settled any outstanding monetary issues, the creditor will give you a release form.
- 6). Take the release form and submit it to the holder of the vehicle. In most cases, this will be a secure lot or garage operated by the repossession agency. After verifying that all of your responsibilities to the creditor have been settled, the holder will release the car back to you.
Source...