Posted in the Litter tray but it's a bit quiet over there so hoping for some advice here, please.
About six years ago we acquired a cat, he belonged to a neighbour who neglected him. He used to come into our house and eat our other cats food and one day we noticed he was injured so after a lot of searching we contacted the owner and asked if he minded us taking him to the vets. He consented so we had him treated and paid the vets fees, we then asked the owner if we could keep him and he agreed.
We then moved far away and he settled well in our new home until recently when he has been staying away more and just coming back occasionally for food. I put notices around and on our local Facebook pages but no one replied but as he still kept coming home we just thought he was spending time outdoors in the nice weather.
Until this morning when we got a call from a vet, not our one, who said someone had taken him in for a consultation as he has a problem. He has had this problem for years and although he has been on all sorts of meds and had an operation there is no cure, it's not life threatening or painful.
Anyway, it seems he has been staying at this ladies house and she has been feeding him for several weeks, he has done exactly the same as how we got him! When we had him treated originally we had to get the previous owners permission before the vet would look at him so my question is who is responsible for paying this vets bill as he is my cat but this lady has made no attempt to find out if he has an owner and took it upon herself to try and get him treated.
Sorry that's so long!