I reserved a ring in a jewellers shop and paid a deposit.

I was paying some instalments but then became poorly and am now not in a financial position to finish paying.

A couple of years has passed by.

I contacted the retailer [small, local shop] who said they have sold the ring and I can't have my money back.

They'll deduct 20% from what I have paid so far and let me choose something from the shop.

Where do I stand?

I assume you signed some form of agreement?

dx

Not an agreement as such.

There was a little repayments card which I have,

It says "All goods remain the property of xxx Jewellers until payment is made in full".

But there is no specified timescale in which to pay.

I realise I should have made the payments sooner,

I have emailed a few times, but it's only now that they have responded.

I just wondered what my rights might be, and hoped someone on here may know!

IMHO they have had your money for XX mts

they should be paying you interest on it as they've deprived you of investing it elsewhere.

demand to see their T&C's

ok, I'll give it a go! thank you

to sum up you agreed to purchase an item and they agreed to let you pay for it over a period of time and kept title to it until it was paid for in full.

So far nothing unusual.

You failed to pay for the tiem within either an agreed time for a reasonable time.

As 2 years have passed by they cannot be held to the part of the contract that says they have to hold the item for you and you only so by selling it they havent breached the contract

Now, as they have recovered their money (assuming they sold it at the full price) they now cannot perform to the contract by supplying you with that item and you are not obliged to buy anything else so they are obliged to refund you the money less any true expense they have suffered in the meanwhile

for example if they sold the ring for less than the price they agreed with you they may keep the difference.

What they cant do is decide to subtract 20% as an arbitrary sum and force you to have a credit note for the remainder, that wasnt part of the deal agreed.

It appears that neither of you thought about the consequences of not paying the money due off so didnt have any terms to cover that eventuality so trying to get them to see reason over this will be difficult

you need to give them a letter outlining this point about THEM not being able to perform to the contract making it void in its entirety and thus they owe you a full refund ( subject to their costs being almost zero as outlined above)

Give them a set period of time to respond with either payment or an acceptable offer as what they have proposed so far isnt acceptable or part of any agreed contractual condition.

How much money is involved?

this may make a difference to how they proceed,

if it is a very small sum they wont want to put a lot of effort into accommodating your request

if it is a large amount they wont want to see their cash reserves suddenly dip and have to tell their accountant to redo the last 2 years figures.

The ring was £550 and I paid approx £300 so far.

It's not a lot of money, but we are in dire financial straits and I really need the refund.

Thank you for your advice,

I will write as you have suggested and see what sort of reply I get.

Can I quote the sale of goods act or anything like that?

I guess not since they have't actually sold it to me yet.

I realise I was in the wrong by not paying quickly but there was no agreed timescale, just a little card with the amounts I had paid written on it and deducted form the total each time.

Last time I went in it was still there but they are now saying it has sold this year.

It was 2nd hand / antique so it's possible it even went up in value [?].

Thank you for your advice

sorry, actual amount paid by me was £380 so far.

Just in case that makes any difference