I bet it's also illegal to "tamper" with your own car in such a way as to stop this from happening, but clearly it's been decided the law is not important here.
That being said, I think you're referencing the more common cases where these devices are used to disable vehicles on lease to customers. In that case the lease holder is not the owner, so yeah tampering with someone else's car is probably not legal. atleast on the surface that seems reasonable, I wouldn't want someone messing with my vehicle.
I'll agree that leasing agreements are often predatory and there is confusion over who's vehicle it is, but if you want ownership you really need to have purchased the title.
Whether they had a contractual right to request the fee for removal of the tracker is a different matter.
Also, even once the title for the car is transferred, the tracker remains the property of the dealer and they will have some rights to recover it.
I'm not sure how Canadian law works, but in most U.S. states, an auto lender holds a lien, which is an encumbrance on your car title. Liens cease to exist when the debt obligation they are tied to is repaid. (Your lender will send you a letter or notice of satisfaction, but that is merely evidence of the fact that the lien has been extinguished.)
Because property law has its own mechanics, you can't just assume that the dealership can give itself arbitrary self-help rights in the contract. It's possible that the dealership has clever lawyers and set things up to allow it to lock out the car even after repayment. But it seems more likely that the dealership simply fucked up, and tried to collect a fee using a self-help remedy it was no longer entitled to use after repayment of the loan.
Are you saying if you signed a contract with a clause that read something like "If you owe us money we can shut off your car after 90 days" it would be illegal for them to actually do it? That seems odd to me.
If you're making rental payments on a car like he was, the title is still with the dealer. And the dealer can do what they want with their car. You have to follow their rental agreement in full, or else.
If he had bought a car with a bank loan, title would be with him. But the bank would have a lien on the car. And the bank (not being stupid) would get a court order before repossessing the car after missed loan payments.
They can shut off THEIR car, if THEY own it, and if THEY have title.
If he owns the car, Quebec law is clear that it is ILLEGAL for them to shut off the car, NO MATTER WHAT THE CONTRACT SAYS.
And yes, ALL CAPS is necessary here, because the information you're asking for has already been explained repeatedly.
If you find yourself unable to understand simple English, it probably means you haven't been listening.
You cannot simply throw money at a lease provider and gain title of a vehicle.
The lease provider can impose other conditions on title transfer (e.g. early repayment fees)
If you're throwing large sums of money at them, they should probably perform some anti-money laundering checks before accepting the money.
If you're paying cash, they may justifiably not want to handle large amounts of cash.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that return of the dealer's GPS tracker (and possible payment for removal) could also be conditions on them transferring the title.
The article is unclear on whether the title was actually transferred before the disagreement over return of the tracker.
Yes, the article is abundantly clear. You're getting downvoted because your position is counter to available facts, and your logic is faulty.
He owned the car. They had no legal right to disable it. As the article says:
Quebec's Consumer Protection Bureau said it is illegal to charge fees not included in a signed contract.
The office also said a lender has to furnish a borrower with notice of 30 days before acting in such a way. Immobilizing a car could amount to a form of intimidation, which is also prohibited under consumer protection laws, they said.
Your position is essentially that illegal behavior is fine, because, well, it's not "clear" that the behavior is illegal. Despite oodles of evidence that it is.
I'm inclined say the tracker is part of the car, and the dealer has no rights over it (unless mentioned in the contract), similar to how a furnace, thermostat, or water heater is part of a house (because its nailed/bolted to the house).
(IANAL)
If the dealer left a ballpoint pen in the glove box, sure, you could make an argument that they retain ownership of it. But the lockout device is exactly as removable and as permanently affixed as the car stereo, or the headlights, or the transmission.
If you replaced the original manufacturer's car stereo with an aftermarket model, and wanted to keep it and swap it back out for the original stereo, you would have to mention that in the purchase agreement. The same goes for any other fixture or appurtenance on the vehicle. If it isn't removed before the papers are signed, or mentioned in those papers, ownership goes with the title to the vehicle.
But in this particular case, they had already sold the car to the guy's family and didn't own the title any more. Yet the kill switch was still in place and they decided to use it over some random fee (which seems to have been for the kill switch itself, per the article). That's pretty obviously illegal.
The dealer, by remotely accessing the device for which they no longer had authorization, is also technically guilty of criminal hacking.