What to do against unjustified retention rights?

Questioner

What to do against an unjustified claim to the right of retention? In short, the situation is as follows: Car is at the garage and they refuse to repair something for which they are liable. Garage believes it is not liable and therefore believes it has a claim. The car will not be released until the claim has been paid. How do you get out of this as a consumer if you do not want to take legal action or pay in advance? Can the car be removed somehow? Or should I take legal action myself, or wait until the garage takes legal action so that they can sell the car so that their claim can be met? Option 1 costs money that you have to chase yourself and option 2 can also take a long time. Are there any options to get the car gone?

Lawyer

Often a letter from a lawyer with a notice of default and a summons will help, otherwise a procedure would be necessary: ​​summary proceedings. Another option is to pay under written explicit protest and after you have the car back, claim the money back etc. This is my specialization and I would be happy to help you with this. Please feel free to contact me without obligation.

Lawyer

Day, I think it is wise to consider whether the garage owner can at least be put in default (this is possible with a date in the past) which would consequently also eliminate the right of retention. I can help you with this.

Lawyer

Even if one wrongly invokes the right of retention (now if there is a case of creditor default or after notice of default), a procedure is still necessary if one does not know how to deviate. The above reaction therefore adds nothing. And sometimes paying under protest is strategically smarter. What is best can be discussed with you. I have more than 15 years of experience with this and I am happy to help you with this. Feel free to contact me without obligation.

Lawyer

Day, In most cases, proceedings do not take place.

Questioner

Thank you for your comments. I'm pretty sure a letter from a lawyer or attorney won't do any good. Paying under protest is exactly the problem. I don't have the money at the moment (and even if I did...) and besides, I'm completely fed up with having to advance everything time and again because of the clumsiness of others and then having to get the money back through procedures (which also cost money). This ultimately costs me even more money and time, which is also almost impossible to recover. Welcome to the Netherlands. The car is still at the garage, unrepaired. However, they are also still charging storage costs that have now risen exorbitantly. In my opinion, completely unjustified, because they refuse to repair the car themselves. So I can't have a third party carry out repairs as long as the car is still there. I also can't get the car without paying first, so limiting the rising costs won't work either. Apparently the only thing I can do, without spending any money myself first, is to wait for them to file a lawsuit to sell the car to get the bill paid?

Lawyer

Waiting seems very unwise to me. With a low income you may be eligible for a supplement, see www.rvr.org (partly state-funded legal aid).

Questioner

I don't have a low income and that's exactly the problem. You can then really pay everything out of your own pocket with the added disadvantage that not all costs can be recovered. Do you find it strange if I say that after several bad experiences I no longer feel like doing that? If I were to have something like that done by a lawyer, the costs would quickly exceed the claim. So I am looking for another way out than paying, paying even more and going to court where, in the end, if you win, you are also the loser because of all the costs and time. The right of retention is a nice means of pressure, but it is annoying in the event of a dispute.