A clean car owner will not be responsible for the “dubious past” of his foreign car

The Constitutional Court (CC) of Russia decided to prohibit customs officers from confiscating cars with a “dark arrival history” unless customs clearly proves that the current owner knew that the car he bought was imported into the country illegally, Novye Izvestia writes. .

Now any owner of a used foreign car that he bought in Russia not through an official dealer, that is, “from hand,” is by default considered a bona fide purchaser, and he does not have the right to take the car or take money for the fact that the seller did not tell him about it. that the vehicle was imported into the country with violations.

Car buyers who did not know at the time of purchase that the car was imported into the country illegally cannot be held responsible for this violation, the Constitutional Court ruling says.

“Now customs officers must prove to the court that the current owner of the car knew that the car had not been cleared through customs,” explained the Constitutional Court. “Only in this case can the vehicle be seized from the owner and sold to cover unpaid duties.”

Until now the situation looked different. A person who bought a foreign car “second-hand” after some time learns from the traffic police during an inspection that, it turns out, his car is wanted in the country from which it was brought. For this, regardless of whether the new owner knew about such a violation or not, a cruel retribution followed - the car was confiscated, and no one returned the money spent on its purchase to him.

The only option to “pay off” was to find the previous owner and demand money from him. But, as a rule, it was already impossible to find a seller after some time.

In 2001, the Constitutional Court already issued a ruling banning the seizure of cars from car owners who did not know that the car was imported illegally. But it never came into force, since it contradicted the Customs Code of 2003, which retained the ban on the use of a vehicle that had not been cleared through customs. As a result, inspectors still confiscated documents for uncleared cars, and with them the vehicles themselves.

The current resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has clearly confirmed the presumption of innocence of law-abiding car owners who did not know that the used foreign car they purchased was imported into the country illegally by its previous owner.

In this case, the principle of protecting a bona fide purchaser applies, adopted in most Western countries when concluding transactions for the purchase and sale of any property - movable and immovable. If a person really did not know about the “stains” on the purchased property, he cannot bear financial losses for this, the newspaper writes.

“This decision of the Constitutional Court is fully consistent with the Constitution, therefore it is absolutely correct,” says Viktor Pokhmelkin, chairman of the Russian Motorists Movement.

According to him, there were a lot of complaints: law-abiding citizens, as a result of basic ignorance, irrevocably lost both their car and their money. “As far as I know, some legal attempts to return the car ended in nothing. I consider the current ruling of the Constitutional Court as a victory for the Law,” he added.