Can a shop keep customer pistols

[XxWoodsHunterxX]

Have a customer that owes money but hads plenty of firearms that have been sent to us to transfer but he owes money before we will release anymore of them to him. They are all C&R revolvers. He says he can pay in 6-8 months. Can we transfer to ourselves or sell to other customers looking or sell back to him at a later date and time if each individual would like to do so. They have all been here for over 60 days.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sass2924]

First, don’t accept anymore guns for him. Then begin a store policy to charge a monthly storage fee, don’t single it out for him and notify him. Make it enough that he will find a way to pick them up. I don’t know about selling them. You could but do you want to fight that battle in court?

What ever you do you need to have a store policy that your customers are aware of.

[XxWoodsHunterxX]

[Garv]

I do not know how much "plenty of guns" is, but $35/week is easy money.
You should be able to buy a safe just for this guys' stuff in a few months, then get to keep the safe.

I would change the store policy to: "guns not picked up after xx weeks will be considered abandoned and sold for storage fees."
(Check with your legal guys.)

[kemasa]

You should also have an abandon firearm policy, in addition to the storage policy.

Why would you want to transfer the firearms out of the business? In theory, it could be done, but it looks strange and then there would be a record of that person owning the firearm forever more, which doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

Either charge storage or get the customer to agree to sell some for the money owed.

[XxWoodsHunterxX]

You should also have an abandon firearm policy, in addition to the storage policy.

Why would you want to transfer the firearms out of the business? In theory, it could be done, but it looks strange and then there would be a record of that person owning the firearm forever more, which doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

Either charge storage or get the customer to agree to sell some for the money owed.

[Powder_Keg]

I’m not a FFL.

Maybe get the customer to agree to sell a couple of the firearms to cover the transfer fees of everything you have of his that needs to be picked up.

After the slate is cleaned, your new store policies kicks in. Maybe put a max on the # of transfers you are willing to hold onto for a customer.

[kemasa]

Once the storage charges exceed the value of the firearm, then it could be sold to pay that debt, but you need to make it clear in advance what the policy is. There are also laws regarding this, although it is a bit unclear as to who owns the firearm and whether some of the laws apply. Worst case the place could be sued in small claims court and the outcome is unknown, if you have the policies and storage fees to justify it, the judge might agree and might not feel that the customer owns the firearm until it is transferred, or the judge could claim that you illegally sold the customer's property.

Make sure that if you charge a storage fee that it says when the person has to pay and what happens if they don't. If you say it is $N/week, but there is nothing saying that it has to be paid each week, the person could say that they were intending to pay when they picked it up so that there was no money due yet.

[Garv]

Make sure that if you charge a storage fee that it says when the person has to pay and what happens if they don't. If you say it is $N/week, but there is nothing saying that it has to be paid each week, the person could say that they were intending to pay when they picked it up so that there was no money due yet.

Good point.

Get the guy to give you a final date for pickup if possible.
Then implement the new policy to protect yourself.

[chevy_dog]

Regarding transfering the firearms to somebody else to sell to him at a later date, would that be considered a straw purchase?

[kemasa]

Regarding transfering the firearms to somebody else to sell to him at a later date, would that be considered a straw purchase?

It depends.

If the firearms are transferred to the person with the intent to keep them, but perhaps give them back should the person pay all of the storage fees, it might not be considered a straw purchase. If the person transferring the firearms is a sole proprietor, then they would not have to fill out a 4473, so there wouldn't be an issue.

If it is done just to "store" the firearms, then the person wouldn't be the actual purchaser or transferee and to say otherwise on the 4473 would be a false statement.

The bottom line, regardless of whether it might be a straw purchase, it is just a really bad idea. The firearms should either be sold or left in inventory until the storage fees are not paid and the firearms are sold to pay the storage fees.

Would you really want your name associated with such firearms? Remember the AFS never deletes information and it will always show that you owned the firearm. If you buy and later sell the firearm, it is just what it is, but to transfer them into your name just to store them just doesn't seem like a good thing.

In addition, if the firearms are transferred, then sales tax would be owed. Then if the firearms are transferred back, sales tax again could be owed since the dealer would be involved with the buyer and the seller, as well as likely involved in the selling price of the firearm, each of which makes that transfer subject to sales tax.