Haulage company using my property as leverage

What are my rights?

Recently a third party arranged a haulage company to ship 2 artworks from Dublin to New York.

I was never in contact with haulage company except on the day of collection.

The payment was not received from the 3rd party so the works were taken off the flight and put in the haulage companies storage. I was promised return for weeks which hasn't happened.

Now the haulage company has changed their tune and won't deliver the items back to me until the get payment off the third party.

Is it legal for them to use my property as leverage like and refuse return?

I had no arrangement of payment with them?

Thanks N.

So the haulage company took the goods from your place to New York after having been requested by the purchaser to collect ad deliver them, you pulled the deal (assumption) and the haulage compnay who had simply taken the goods from your place to the airport has now got them in storage in this country.

The contract for delivery was between them and the third party.

You might ask them on what legal basis they are holding onto your property on foot of a debt which is due to them from a third party.

The fact that you pulled the plug might cloud the issue somewhat but that is the tack I'd take, threaten legal action to recover the paintings.

thanks for the advice

I'm not sure what basis you make the assumption on the poster pulling the plug - there is nothing to suggest this happened. My take would be that the 3rd party just didn't pay, and until he/she does the haulage company should be under no obligation to release the items. It's not as if the poster and third party are unrelated parties - the third party was acting on behalf on the poster.

If I was to threaten legal action, I'd consider pursuing the third party for non payment rather than the haulage company...can you not either pay or get the third party to pay?

Why should the haulage company end up out of pocket for a poorly managed arrangement between the poster and the third party?

leonB said:

I was never in contact with haulage company except on the day of collection.

Click to expand...

May I rewrite and that as : 'On the day of collection I was in contact with the haulage company'.
In my eyes whoever you put in charge of your art was acting as your agent with your full consent and above you've just admitted to us all that you agreed to release the art to the haulage company on the day of collection and knew about the collection of the art,
To accuse the hard working innocent haulage company of theft, they would have to be thieves from day one but you basically greeted them on the day of collection....or am I missing something ?

LeonB -- Thisd sounds like some crazy arrangement to me. You haven't been paid and now the Haulage company hasn't either. How can you release goods to the US without payment. Regardless, you should deal with the matter ASAP, as the daily charge for Storage in NY is rising every day. If the paintings are valuable well and good - otherwise the costs will be more than their value. If they are saleable on the open market, pay the costs and work on the basis for next time that you will sell them delivered to the purchasers haulage co., or ex your office. Then you can get paid and the haulage is not your problem. You are rightly in a picke at the moment - remember possession is 9/10s of the law, and they are far away.