A new customer steps into your workshop and asks you to carry
out some work to their classic car. Nothing strange or
newsworthy about that, but what happens if you later discover that
your customer is not in fact the owner?
With an increase in the value of classic cars, complex ownership
arrangements are increasingly common. For example, a highly
valuable classic car might be owned by a trust, or by a company or
possibly it may be owned jointly by various individuals who have
clubbed together to buy it. The manner in which ownership of a
valuable classic car is arranged can sometimes appear artificial,
indeed the ownership might have been deliberately structured to
distance the "regular user" from the entity which legally
owns it. This could lead to customers considering themselves
as "the owner" when in law ownership of the car belongs
elsewhere.
