QUESTION
Is it legal to hold someone's personal property as collateral?
Asked on Jun 20th, 2016 on Breach of Contract - South Carolina
More details to this question:
We hired "friends" of ours to reshingle our roof back on May 7th. On May 8th, we paid them in full since we knew they really needed the money. They are over 1/2 done with the job, but are finding multiple excuses to not come finish. Their flatbed trailer was used to haul the materials that we paid for to our house. Now they want to use the trailer to move. Are we legally allowed to hold their trailer as collateral until the job is finished?
1 ANSWER
No, unless your contract provides you with that right, or you have some sort of statutory lien on the property (for which I see no basis). It's your friends' property, and while you claim that they have breached your contract and owe you something, right now that is nothing more than your claim, with which your friends would no doubt disagree. Put bluntly, you can't just take someone else's property because you claim that they owe you something.
Answered on Jun 21st, 2016 at 10:50 AM