Thread: Car Write Off and Garage

Hi,

Sounds like the CAB have got it right. Write to the dealer stating you are rejecting the car under SOGA and as such you require a full refund. Give them 14 days to respond stating after which you will persue them via the small claims court. Mark the letter 'Final notice prior to proceedings', send by recorded delivery and come back and let us know what (if anything) had happened.

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Please Note

The advice I offer will be based on the information given by the person needing it. All my advice is based on my experiences and knowledge gained in working in the motor and passenger transport industries in various capacities. Although my advice will always be sincere, it should be used as guidence only.

I would always urge to seek professional advice for clarification prior to taking any action.

Please click my scales at the bottom of my profile window on the left if you found my advice usefull.

Do not talk to the dealer on the phone or in person unless you are recording the phone call.
Only do it by recorded delivery letter. You must have a paper trail.

How was the car described as this is what will constitute your action.

As you didn't know, it could also affect your insurance and any payout should you be involved in an accident.

Small claims will cost you about £35 and are recoverable. You can do it on line at http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/o...mcol/index.htm

Use the link which Conniff posted. You can also claim interest as well as the court costs. This will continue to acumilate until they settle or date of judgement which ever is sooner. Keep the advert as this will be evidence to back your claim.

__________________

Please Note

The advice I offer will be based on the information given by the person needing it. All my advice is based on my experiences and knowledge gained in working in the motor and passenger transport industries in various capacities. Although my advice will always be sincere, it should be used as guidence only.

I would always urge to seek professional advice for clarification prior to taking any action.

Please click my scales at the bottom of my profile window on the left if you found my advice usefull.

Sorry but I thought CAB had already advised you and I'm confused on what you mean by 'the claim amount at £108'. The claim amount is what you are claiming for i.e. the full purchase price of the vehicle which you say was £4000. I asume in your 'letter before action' you indicated to the dealer that you were rejecting the car under the SOGA in addition to the false description. Oh, and have you given the dealer at least 14 days to respond? You should actually not commence proceedings until the 16th day after your letter.

Anyway to answer your points;

1. The court fee (small claims which will be in the county court) is around £35 which will be added to your costs if your claim is sucsessful. The fee will be comfirmed when you make the claim which you do so on line using the link which Conniff provided in post #6.

2. No it will not 'work against you or be seen as unfair'. You can claim interest of the current rate (which is around 8%) of your amount which will acumilate daily from the day the debt originated (the date of sale) to the date you either recieve payment in full from the respondent (the dealer) or the date of judgement.

3. In my opinion and from what you have posted then yes providing you have the evidence such as the original advert and the HPI check result and the MOT.

If you want any further clarification, have a word with consumer direct/trading standards. This dealer may be known to them!

Good luck.

Thanks for your reply Sailor Sam.

I found this document:
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/c...rms/ex50_e.pdf

This has a list of fees, are these applicable to small claims court too? Or will be fees for SCC be around £35 like you said even if the claim amount is £4000?

Thanks again.

Is anyone able to answer the above question?

Thanks.

-Edit- When I go through online the fee seems to be be £100, so i'm guessing thats what i'll have to pay. Another question is, do we get to go into more detail after the particulars of claim?

Thanks.

Hi

Sorry not replied earlier but I've been working.

Ok, if you apply on line then it appears that the fee is £100 because of the amount you are claiming. £35 is the normal fee for claims under £500 so I apologise if I caused some confusion.

When you submit the claim on line via Money-Claim, you will complete the on-line form dtailiing the particulars of your claim. Any paper eveidence you have will be submitted at a later date when it has been listed in a court which will be the nearest to the applicant (you). The on-line process is pretty straight forward and it will prompt you as you go so there is little to worry about. If necessary, there is a help line you can contact.

As I said before, you must wait for the 14 days you gave in your letter before commencing proceedings. Once processed, the respondent (dealer) will be given 14 days to submit a defence or admit to the claim. If he submits a defence, you will receive a copy of his statement but in the maentime, the court will refer it for mediation in an attempt to settle without any hearing. They will ask you (and the respondent) if you agree to this which is basically to negotiate a settlement. In these circumstances, I would suggest there is nothing beneficial to you to settle for anything less than a full refund plus costs because (according to your information) the respondent has clearly miss-sold you the car and as such should pay up in full so you may wish to refuse the mediation process but that is up to you. You could go along with it and see what happens because you still have the option to persue the claim in court.

After that (assuming not settlement is reached), the case will then be allocated to a court where you will then be required to submit your eveidence (HPI/MOT reports and the advert ect). If you have any witnesses, ask them to compile a statement and submit this as well. It will then be listed for a hearing in front of a district judge who will decide on the case.

If it gets that far and you succeed, the respondent will also be liable for any further costs you (and your witness) incurr to attend the hearing (travel, time off work ect).

I hope this answers your questions.

Did the car not have a full MOT when you bought it? In any event, if the dealer takes the car back, then you should be able to get a refund off the un-used car tax from the DVLA so you would not be able to claim for road tax. You can certainly add the cost of the tyres if you can show they needed replacing within the first 3 months due to their age/condition from when you bought the car. You can also add the cost of the MOT.

But it will be up to the judge whether he awards you the full amount at the end of the day. I would assume that the dealer will have to take the car back if your claim is successful, so the judge may think that he should be expected to re-inburse you for these 'improvements' to the car.

Errrrrrr......... I think you need to be a bit more careful here.

Has the car actually got any faults that could be attributed to a Cat C failure. Then has the dealer actually misled. HPI ( Hire Purchase Information) was made initially available to determine who had financial interests in the car. In a nutshell, who might actually own the car. Then the insurance stuff was added.

Now in previous posts I have made I pointed out that the catagories are based on economic repair, not necessarily engineering feasibility. So it's possible that on inspection the assesor thought it was borderline cat B but erred on the side of caution as a cat C.

Now all cars are repairable, it just depends on the economics and how well it's done.

When the dealer says it's HPI clear, it might well be that he was referring to having no finance. The rest of it is very grey I think. So you might need to do a bit more homework on this me thinks before embarking on the legal route.

Then you have bought a used vehicle, did the dealer promise a full MOT. The car was used so you buy accepting a certain degree of wear. Tyres are part of it, they do need replacing.

CAB are not always right and rely on info given at the time. The action they and others suggest is correct but frankly going to court on what you have posted so far........well I think you need more.

Perhaps an independant report might help from a "Professional" vehicle engineer might give you a bit more to go on but I regret to say that I think your case is very weak at this moment in time.

Originally Posted by heliosuk

When the dealer says it's HPI clear, it might well be that he was referring to having no finance. The rest of it is very grey I think. So you might need to do a bit more homework on this me thinks before embarking on the legal route.

According to the OP, The dealer claimecd the car was HPI clear which means insurance write off/stolen/outsatnding finance. So he has failed to disclose material information which the buyer may wish to consider before purchasing. Obviously without seeing how the car was advertised, the above cannot be comfirmed but it appears the dealer has been 'economical' with the true description of the condition and history of said vehicle.