How do I know if my car was repossessed illegally?

There are no car repossession laws that regulate the legality of the repossession of a vehicle or other secured property.  The validity of the repossession of the property by the creditor or bank would be based on the terms of the security agreement that you signed when you accepted the loan for the money to buy the property from the creditor or bank.  If the security agreement allowed for repossession of the property upon certain payment default conditions and your missed payments will meet or exceed those conditions then the credit will have a legal right to repossess the vehicle or other property.   

Review the Security Agreement

In order to be absolutely sure that your vehicle was validly repossessed the former owner must get out the original loan documents and review the security agreement that was signed.  Make sure that allow of the documents are in fact signed and dated because if there is no signature there was no agreement.   If the vehicle was deemed collateral for the loan then the next step is to determine if the debtor payment default met the agreement criteria for activating collateral ownership rights in the creditor allowing for a repossession of the collateral vehicle.  If the terms of the security agreement were breached by the repossessing creditor such as in a situation where payments received but not properly credited to the debtor or the debtor has declared bankruptcy then it would be important to contact a debt collection attorney as soon as possible concerning the incident.

Getting Legal Help

Talk to the creditor and contact a debt collection lawyer in order to resolve the repossession action if possible.  The creditor will take a big loss on the vehicle repossession and would often rather resolve the problem and keep the customer that has fallen into difficult financial times and not the vehicle.