HELP! Advice Sought.... - Page 1

Ok, so a friend of mine called me with a bit of an issue, and I figured I would post here to see what you guys thought.... She recently purchased a dog, from a pretty pricey broker. The broker let her put x amount down, and the rest was set up in some type of payment arrangement. Well she asked her seller for a COPY of the pink papers, so she could send them to the USA with the registration, etc. to get him started with his show career and order his scorebook, etc. At first, she was told HE physically mailed the papers to Germany to get the paperwork needed for the change of ownership, AKC papers, etc. and that he did NOT photocopy the papers. Well a few weeks pass, and she calls him back to find out if he AT LEAST had the SZ and Tattoo # written down, and he said he "never got the papers" from the person HE bought the dog from. That THEY were in fact the ones who were in possession of the paperwork and he would contact them to see what the status was. He claimed to have "contacted" this person whom he purchased the dog from, and said they "mailed" that papers to Germany, and so on. So my friend got a little confused after talking to a reputable breeder, who told her it all sounded fishy, etc. and decided to call the ORIGINAL importer/broker. And he told her he mailed the PINK PAPERS to the person who bought the dog and sold it to her. And that if he didn't have them, they were "lost in the mail" ... Well long story short, both the importer and seller claim the papers were here in the USA and are "LOST IN THE MAIL" ... after some phone calls, and digging, one of our friends overseas managed to get ahold of the dogs ORIGINAL PINK PAPERS, and there are no "owners" listed, other than the breeder of the dog. My friend is making arrangements to get the papers, however, after some back and forth phone calls, etc. between her and the dogs breeder and the SV, the papers were never "owed" to anyone, and have NEVER left Germany. So esentially the people here in the states who sold her the dog lied about the paperwork, etc. and didn't ever really have the papers to sell WITH THE DOG. Now she is in a moral delema, and I think your opinions would be greatly appreciated on this ... Does she arrange to get the papers, and then pay the people who imported the dog the balance owed? Does she get the papers, and not finish paying them off, since her contract stated the dog was being sold with papers, and they obviously didn't have them to produce them upon pay off? HELP! WHAT would anyone suggest in this matter? She is confused, and rather upset. If she didn't start digging on her own, she may have never had papers on the dog... as both parties in the US claim they had the papers IN HAND ... when the reality was the papers had never left Germany.... Sorry if this is long, and boring, and sounds stupid. I just don't know what to tell my friend. And she's torn about all of it....

In my interpretation, if the dog is sold "with papers" then those papers are given to the purchaser upon full receipt of ALL monies owed for the dog. To me a dog purchased on some type od payment plan is not owned by the purchaser until the debt is paid in full. But, if what your friend says is true, then she was dealing with a dishonest broker who indicated that he/she had the paperwork in their possession. This was apparently not true as your friend has discovered. She needs to pay all monies owed for the dog. The broker needs to pay the overseas owner of the dog. Many overseas breeders and sellers withold paperwork until the money is in their hands. One cannot blame them for this method of doing business. Again, all of the money must be paid, and upon payment the paperwork had better be in her possession and signed by the overseas owner indicating that your friend is now the rightful owner of the dog. Be very careful with the money. The broker has misrepresented himself/herself previously, so trust may be very limited for good reason. I advise you to tell your friend this: Find a property attourney who can set up an escrow account for the payment of this purchase, with the stipulation that a final payment (select a fair amount) will be made upon receipt of the tranferred paperwork. This keeps the original seller from sitting on his hands. Keep the broker completely out of the deal. The deal will now be between your friend and the original seller. The seller expects all of his money, and your friend wants her dog complete with all of his paperwork. One (1) final note-there are international escrow services who specialize in matters identical to these. Perhaps a Google search or a recommendation from another poster will furnish a qualified party. There will of course be some cost for this type of service, but it is the only feasible way to do business across national borders without travelling oneself and finalizing the deal there. Good Luck, Bob-O

VegasK9, at your convenience would you please send me the information as to who is this broker. I will keep it private and off the pedigreedatabase. Derhundmeister@aol.com Bob-O

Morally, I'd say that you have no responsibility to pay persons who were trying to con you. Legally, however, it is a different matter. I wish you had included an email address and requested private responses, so that your importer does not know your game plan, as he or she may be reading your posts also. I'd get the papers BEFORE I made any more moves or communicated negatively with importer or previous owner who sold to the importer. You do NOT want that move intercepted. Once she is the legal owner of the dog, she has more paperwork and documentation to stand on. Have the BREEDER write a letter to her, about how she transfered the dog's papers directly to your friend, and let the breeder mention the effort it took for your friend to get these papers, if they will be so kind and do not mind being involved. Even if it is in German, there are a lot of people that speak and write German. "He who has the most paperwork---wins." AFTER she gets the papers, CHARGE THE IMPORTER a "fee" for the steps she had to go through to obtain the papers. Make it pricey to reflect the time, frustration, and effort to have done this. Send notice though the mail requiring a signature, concerning the fee that is being charged, and send the corresponding amount remaining due with it. Her time, her friends' time, phone calls, postage, etc, are all valuable and should be recognized in a court of law. Be sure it is all well documented, even if she has to go back and recreate it with notations on her planner or calendar. If your friend did not charge you to help her...well...make sure she does, if you know what I mean. I think that the importer can take your friend to court, even to small claims court if the importer is local. I think the trouble and time this woman had to put into obtaining papers for a dog she purchased from sellers who did NOT genuinely possess the papers as they claimed, would put the judge on her side. It is NOT ILLEGAL to charge for services required to obtain what had already been promised. It is NOT LEGAL to claim to have the papers and then not actually have them, but you must be ready to prove this circumstance beyond a shadow of a doubt, to obtain the judges sympathy. You also need this proof to put a pre-emptive strike on the probable claim by the importer who will claim you acquired the papers through HIM and all these allegations are false. That's how they operate. I think charging these fees could legitimately stand up in court, but again, I am not a lawyer. But I have been around a lot of legal-ese, LOL.

Bob-O, the origional seller to the broker did not have the papers either, the origional breeder had the papers. So she should not pay the origional seller to the broker either. The breeder is apparently not asking for money for the dog. Is that right, Vegas K9?

Just a quick note, the breeder is owed NOTHING on the dog. The dog had a $3-4K mark up from what we understand.

3-4k?? Could have been a round trip ticket to Germany, rental car, hotel, and LOTS of dogs to choose from. Could have even taken a German Language student as a trustworthy translator on your behalf to read the local papers, talk with breeders etc. Would have been fun.

as for me ... if ALL THE INFO IS TRUE TO FACT.. ..i would make sure i had the info for the people who owned the dog in Germany .. contact them and inform them of the situation .. then i would go to the person that sold me the dog under those pretenses .. grab him by the t****8888esticles until i got my money back and then i forwared the rightful sum to the person that had the right to sell the dog in the first place- request the appropriate paperwork !

Interesting circumstances. The breeder acknowledges they got the money and didn't send the papers. They are willing to send ownership papers to someone they never received money from or have a contract with. Since the purchaser contacted the breeder, continuity has been lost in the deal. Breeder can say they sent the papers to the purchaser and name the purchaser. Importer has no recourse to obtain the papers at that point. Importer can now only try to collect the money owed from the purchaser and is under no obligation to provide papers. If the breeder is unethical, and from what's posted here, could wery well be. They are in a position to do all sorts of things to extract more money from the deal.... Sell the pedigree to someone else. (Here's a pedigree. Tattoo your dog with this tattoo and someone else has your dog) Sell the dog to someone else or report it stolen. (Your friend has nothing showing the dog is theirs) Hold the pedigree for ransome. (Check from the importer didn't clear my bank. Now you owe me the full purchase price to get your papers) All sorts of things could happen. Let us know how it turns out.

First of all, the papers belong to the SV and the dog. The owner is only entrusted with them for record keeping purposes. The breeder did business with whoever he sold the dog to, and physical possession of papers and a record of transfer of ownership are owed to that person. That person sold the dog to another person and physical possession of papers and a record of transfer of ownership is owed to that next person. Finally, when the purchase is completed with the most recent person in the chain of events, which it is not at this point, then that person is owed the physical possession of papers and a record of transfer of ownership. Not before. The dog was sold with papers, meaning the dog HAS papers. No papers are needed to transfer ownership, that can be done separately. Even if papers were lost in the mail for example, duplicates can always be issued. Nothing is being lost here. Not paying off the balance though because someone is not in physical possession of the papers is only a poor excuse to wiggle out of finanical obligations. It is quite common not to list all people involved in a sale otherwise some dogs would need an extra page added to their papers, though according to SV rules it should not be that way. Very common too to have a breeder or seller hold onto papers and then have then sent to the final owner. Nothing unusual happened here. The seller probably just tried to stall for time rather than go into lenghy explanations. Because - the buyer is simply not entitled to any paperwork til the sale is completed. Until the dog is paid in full the buyer is not entitled to even a copy of the pedigree unless it is clearly marked "void - not for registration purposes". The buyer is not entitled to register that dog in his or her name, until it is paid in full. If they want to start on the dogs show or trialing carreer and have funds to spare on that, they should use these funds to pay off the dog instead. If the dog is not paid in full yet, either the first purchaser or the importer can contact the SV and let them know that the current person who has the dog was not the purchaser directly from the breeder. That means that the SV will then NOT accept a transfer from the breeder to that current person. That will put registration status in limbo, and I hope that the person still owned money on the dog reads this so he can protect his interests and make sure he is not conned out of his funds by the buyer. No need to be careful with the money. All parties involved in this deal seem to be known. The breeder can do nothing, has already stated that dog was paid in full to person X. The suggestion that the breeder could try to get more money out of the current holder of the dog is rediculous. Everyone who is part of this chain of events is obligated to the next person they were dealing with. If the buyer can prove full payment, then buyer is entitled to have ownership tranferred and SV can help with that. But not until dog is paid in full. But if the buyer starts sh*t like that (non-payment), don't be surprised if the seller returns in kind and throws a few road block down himself. And rightfully so. Solution: have previous owners obtain transfer of ownerships breeder to seller1, seller1 to seller2. Once buyer sees both, pay the balance, then seller2 sends transfer of ownership to buyer to SV. If unsure, set up quick contract that transfer will be done once payment has been received, and if it is not done that contract will act in lieu of such a transfer once full payment has been made. Done. Why all this drama all the time!