Australian woman refuses to pay thousands in traffic fines her sister accumulated on a car she sold to their mom, never legally transferred, and then took back

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jun 29, 2026 11:15 AM EDT

A 27-year-old is being asked to pay thousands in traffic fines for a car her family bought her, a car that was never legally transferred into her name, that her sister eventually took back and kept, and that racked up most of its fines either before she had it or after her sister repossessed it.

Her sister originally sold the car to their mom so she could have her first vehicle, the same way mom had bought the sister her first car. She warned her parents this would blow up. They insisted it was hers. The registration never got transferred, and when her sister asked to borrow it for a week, she simply never returned it.

Out of roughly $5,000 in fines, five happened while the family had the car, four were her dad's and one was hers. So she owes one fine, fine. She does not owe the rest.

The rest accumulated under her sister's name while her sister had the car. She has already agreed to pay her one ticket. That is a reasonable, proportionate response to her actual responsibility.

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  • AITA for refusing to help my sister pay for thousands of dollars in traffic fines that accumulated while I had her car?

    A few years ago, my sister (34) sold her car to our mum. She was moving to the city and planning to sell it. cheap, so mum offered a larger
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  • Woman sitting on a sunny balcony with a laptop, plants, privacy screen, and rooftops nearby.
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    Woman using a laptop on a sunny balcony with a quietly concerned focus, like she's sorting through a problem that landed in her lap, as shown by a model.

  • amount so the car could be my first(27F) since she had bought my sister her first car.
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  • At the time, I was saving for my own. car but my parents kept telling me to stop worrying, saying "we bought it, it's yours." Each time, I'd say, "I know my sister, she's going to come back
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  • in a few months and say she never sold you that car." They insisted it was mine, and since I was stressed about saving, I accepted it. I tried to get the registration changed to my parents' names several times, but it never happened.
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  • Orange parking ticket tucked under a windshield wiper on a car windshield.
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    Orange parking ticket tucked under a windshield wiper, like an unwanted surprise waiting on the glass.

  • A few months later, my sister called mum and asked to borrow the car for a week. She never brought it back. Months later, she messaged
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  • mum frustrated because $5,000 in speeding and parking tickets had accumulated under her name, and she blamed me. When we checked
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  • the dates, 5 tickets happened while we had the car, 4 were my dad's, 1 was mine, and the rest were hers.
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  • Woman in a parking garage reading a paper beside a car with a concerned expression.
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    Woman reading paperwork beside a car with a troubled, confused expression, like a mistake is suddenly becoming expensive, as shown by a model.

  • She denied ever selling the car, saying she had paid for registration/reinstate her license. She told me I was trying to get between her and mum, and that I'm old
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  • enough to buy my own car (mind you, she was the same age when mum bought her her first car). We were no contact for years after this until 2025 when we agreed to work on things.
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  • She is moving to a new city next week. She gave me a deadline to finalise fines and fix a dent I put in the car. I bought equipment to fix it, but she shipped the car the next day,
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  • so I couldn't. A part of me feels guilty because "if you break it, you fix it," and I want to keep my conscience clean.
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  • Would I really be the a_h_le if I just let her deal with it? Edit - my mum and dad are saying I should help her pay
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  • Clarification: this all happened between 2022- 2024.
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  • 1. She realised she had tickets under her name sometime after she reposssed the car when she received two
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  • registration/licence related tickets. Bc she was still the registered owner, all notices about registration went to her. I tried once to pay the
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  • registration and it required info only she knew. I doubt the registration went unpaid from when we had it to when she took it because either me or
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  • dad would have been stopped. I will be trying to get proof of who paid this/when it renewed bc I remember doing so.
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  • 2. About interest: In Australia, infringement notices are sent to the registered owner. I was not made aware of them until after interest had accumulated.
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  • Interest stops accumulating once you set a payment plan so I would need to figure out when she did that and if it was before or after she told me
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  • Update: I said I will pay for my speeding ticket. She now wants me to pay for her 2 other tickets and interest... She is saying my parents
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  • need to make me pay or she will "retrieve the money any way" she "wants". She has recently taken a few of my packages so I'm assuming she
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  • is going to take some of my valuables before she leaves? Idk what she means by that.
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  • Edit: this is my first post sorry I didn't know yall don't care for background info. I added it to give insight into why I am feeling frustrated/considering doing something that might be an a_hole move.
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  • What is not reasonable is her sister demanding she also cover the remaining fines and interest, threatening to “retrieve the money any way she wants,” and apparently already stealing packages as a preview of what that means. This is not a billing dispute anymore. It is coercion.

    The guilt about the dent is the most human part of this story. She bought equipment to fix it. Her sister shipped the car before she could. At some point personal accountability has to meet basic fairness, and fairness here is pretty clear: you pay for what you actually did, not for what someone else did in a car they took back and kept driving.

    She owes one fine, fine. She does not owe the rest.

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family drama AITAH mother car siblings favoritism fines sister Reddit entitled people
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