Couple fined Dhs500,000 for buying a car with a forged cheque in Abu Dhabi

Abdul Rahman Saeed, Staff Reporter

The Abu Dhabi Family, Civil and Administrative Cases Court obligated a couple to pay Dhs500,000 for fraudulently buying a person’s car against a non-cashable forged cheque and using a false name.

Earlier, a car owner filed a lawsuit in which he requested the court to obligate three people to pay him Dhs405,000, this being the price of the car they had stolen, plus Dhs100,000 as a compensation with a 12 per cent interest.

He explained that after he offered his car for sale on an electronic platform, he received a call from a woman who negotiated the price with him but he insisted on the offered price, he said.

"The woman told him that her husband agreed to buy the car. When the woman came to see the car owner, she told him that her husband could not come and instead sent her to hand the cheque over to him," car owner added.

Subsequently, the ownership of the car was transferred in the husband’s name and the owner received a cheque from her.

Later, the husband transferred the ownership of the car in the name of a third person, but when the car owner tried to cash the cheque, it turned out that it was forged, so he reported the incident to the police and a lawsuit was filed under which the couple were convicted.

The court clarified that it was proven that the two defendants - the wife and the third person - were convicted of participating with an unknown person in seizing movable property fraudulently using a false name. The court stated that the couple participated with another unknown person in taking possession of the plaintiff’s car fraudulently, using a false name.

As a result of this, the plaintiff sustained material harms as embodied in being deprived of using the price of the car, not to mention the moral harms that befell him including the feeling of sadness, grief and regret.

Based on this, the court considered that giving the plaintiff Dhs500,000 as a compensation for all the material and moral harms referred to above would be sufficient.