We left our car in a friends garage and were paying them a five pounds a week for a while. I then became unemployed and we didn’t pay anything for twelve months, during which time they sold the vehicle without telling us, even though they had our address and telephone number. Can we claim from them the value of the car?
Yes. You should ask them to give you the money they received for the car, with a deduction for the amount of rent you owed up to the time the vehicle was sold. They would probably have been within their rights to prevent you driving the car away until you had paid the back rent, but they had no right to sell the vehicle without your permission.