Long story short,

18 yr old son purchased a brand new car in October and as part of the deal the dealer offered him £2300 for his PX without seeing the car but I assume they ran a valuation on it and HPI check etc at time of quoting the PX figures etc.....

This week my son has just received an email and recorded letter from the dealership headed final before legal requesting he pays £500 to the dealership as the PX only fetched £1800 at auction as a consequence of the car having apparently been written off under Cat D damage that my son had no knowledge of having bought the PX privately about 18 months ago.

Surely the dealership has no grounds for redress given that they would of been aware of the cars history when they provided us with the PX price? Secondly had the car fetched more than £2300 at auction would they be writing to me to say they they owe me the difference over and above the PX valuation? I somewhat highly doubt it.

They are saying my son signed to say the PX had not been involved in any accidents and was not subject to outstanding finance or being written off but he genuinely didn’t know that the vehicle has been previously written off as damaged but repairable.

Can anyone offer advice as surely the purchase was concluded back in October and the PX provided by the dealership is a risk that all dealers / traders take especially as the car ended up going to auction.

something doesn't sound right here that's for sure.

I bet the letter doesn't say will anywhere

can you scan it up to PDF please

read upload

Here’s the content of their letter;

This letter is our final request for you to make payment towards the sale by auction of your part exchange used in the purchase of SEAT LEON XxxxxxX.

We bought the vehicle in good faith from you as part of the concluding sale of the SEAT LEON.

You signed to confirm, both on our purchase invoice and on the order form that the vehicle Toyota Iq2 XxxxxX had not been involved in any accident resulting in a Total Loss Claim.

The vehicle as listed and received is in fact a total loss vehicle (Information supplied by Experian HPI).

Therefore, the information you signed and gave us was in fact incorrect.

Due to the incorrect information both verbally and written given by yourself, the vehicle was valued above its actual worth.

We valued the vehicle as described at £2300.

When given the Total Loss Claim the actual monies received via auction were £1800.

We request that you pay us the difference of £500 in the next 7 days to prevent further action.

By further action I mean, collection via the County Court where charges will also apply.

Please contact me on the number or email above to arrange for payment or if you required any proofs,

i.e. HPI check, Purchase Invoice, Receipt of Funds from the Auction House.

Yours sincerely

There was a similar thread here not long ago, can't find it now.

The advice given on that was the information given that the vehicle had not been involved in any previous accident/write off was given in good faith and was true to the best of your knowledge and belief.

You have no knowledge of any such accident/write-off and you could not disclose what you did not know.

By further action I mean, collection via the County Court where charges will also apply.

the county court doesn't do collection.... powerless debt collectors do though!!

what was the title of the letter?

ignore the muppet

The letter is titled ‘WARNING - FINAL NOTICE BEFORE ACTION’

final notice before what action?

then that's not a letter of claim nor a letter before action.

just his mate down the pub saying send this I bet they'll wet themselves

It’s actually from a franchise dealer group.

A dealer accepting part exchange without doing an hpi check...

Tells a lot about how professional they are.

Get hold of the paperwork your son signed and you'll find that it says something like "...the information supplied are correct to the best of my knowledge".

End of.

I can just imagine if this was the other way round.

I guess the owner of the car would just suck it up if the car he bought from the dealer turned out to be on the register?

Only one side of the story is presented here yet people weigh in with absolute certitude.

You are surely aware that it is only ever 'good practice' for vehicles to have markers against them on HPI/Experian, you do all know that dont you?

That is why there is insurance on every check against inaccuracies.

There is no law saying that a car on the register or having finance against it must show up on a data check.

As mentioned it is only ever described as good practice to add this information to the database.

In my experience dealers use HPI/Experian to get the vehicles valuation as it saves doing 2 checks (one for valuation and one for adverse data).

So they may well have done a data check which came back clear.

The guys son made a declaration stating that his car was free from encumbrance and was not on the register,

if he was not sure he should not have answered in the negative in that instance.

I know this as i once had to pay for a car again several months after i bought it.

As i was on the phone with Experian asking why the finance did not show

they added it to the report before my eyes and the company i bought the car from had gone out of business.

As with most things, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous,

please think before giving advice.

Cars are an emotive subject as a lot of men think they know everything there is to know!

It is like me thinking i can practice medicine after going to the doctors once or twice.

Your son stitched up the garage and they are SOL,

probably an innocent and hard working family business too.

But hey, well done you

.

 

Your son stitched up the garage and they are SOL,

probably an innocent and hard working family business too.

But hey, well done you

OP said his son bought the car privately 18 months ago and had no knowledge of any previous write off. You've simply asserted on zero evidence that this is a lie and the son knew it was a write off and stitched up the garage. Unless you have evidence for that assertion your contribution is not very helpful to OP or anyone else. (What does SOL mean, by the way?)

I don't think OP should ignore the garage's claim but should first ask for a copy of his son's statement/document to the garage about the vehicle's condition and history and post it up here (with identifying details removed).

Good evening all,

Once again another idiot joins a forum and offers no assistance whatsoever.

Today I have received a copy of the HPI check from the dealer dated September 2017 and it did indeed show the vehicle was a total loss previously but damaged repairable. The valuation in September showed the vehicle as a minimum value of £2400 given what was established during this check so the dealer offered £100 less than book.

My case in argument now is that the valuation was based on what they knew from the start. This hasn’t just presented itself when the car went off to auction.

In my opinion no redress should be payable and if need be I would go to court over this as their HPI check and subsequent valuation is time and date stamped prior to the conclusion of the contract.

In other words someone in the dealership has cocked up on this one because to the best of our knowledge as the car was purchased privately we knew nothing of any previous damage or total loss.

I can just imagine if this was the other way round.

 

I guess the owner of the car would just suck it up if the car he bought from the dealer turned out to be on the register?

 

Only one side of the story is presented here yet people weigh in with absolute certitude.

 

You are surely aware that it is only ever 'good practice' for vehicles to have markers against them on HPI/Experian, you do all know that dont you?

That is why there is insurance on every check against inaccuracies.

There is no law saying that a car on the register or having finance against it must show up on a data check.

As mentioned it is only ever described as good practice to add this information to the database.

 

In my experience dealers use HPI/Experian to get the vehicles valuation as it saves doing 2 checks (one for valuation and one for adverse data).

So they may well have done a data check which came back clear.

 

The guys son made a declaration stating that his car was free from encumbrance and was not on the register,

if he was not sure he should not have answered in the negative in that instance.

 

I know this as i once had to pay for a car again several months after i bought it.

As i was on the phone with Experian asking why the finance did not show

they added it to the report before my eyes and the company i bought the car from had gone out of business.

 

As with most things, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous,

please think before giving advice.

 

Cars are an emotive subject as a lot of men think they know everything there is to know!

It is like me thinking i can practice medicine after going to the doctors once or twice.

 

Your son stitched up the garage and they are SOL,

probably an innocent and hard working family business too.

But hey, well done you

What planet did you emerge from???

Looking at your comments it would appear you work and side for the franchise dealer in question and also have no idea about legislation.

The dealer knew all about the issue when they offered their PX valuation and nor did they share this.

They too have also signed a contract at handover and only now some 3 months following conclusion of the sale do they come chasing my son for a shortfall following sale at auction.

Would they be calling me to offer a refund had the car fetched more at Auction.

I think not!!!

good post!!

dx

Can I ask a general question on this.

As seen as when you take out insurance and the son knowingly or unknowingly insures the car,

surely the insurance company,

as seen as they share info between company's,

should of known that the car had been written off and a payout had been made.

It's a long time since I had anything to do with accident damaged repairable cars,

but at that time I'm sure there was something on the log book to indicate a write off situation.

I just can't comprehend this post as it could mean that ANY car which failed to reach trade in price at auction was the subject of claim against the previous owner !!!!

If dealer didn't know it was a CAT C car, how did people at auction know ????

due diligence.

Your son is obliged to tell the dealership the truth

so if he didnt know about the vehicle being a Cat C write off

then he wasdnt lying to them,

it was his best knowledge and belief.

The dealership are professional car buyers and sellers,

they take risk whenevr they buy a vehicle form whatever the source

and the law doesnt allow them to change their minds 3 months later,

they have the advantage they can write it down for tax purposes if they are selling it at a loss.

A person collects stamps.

He buys a stamp that is rare and costs him a fortune.

Later on he finds out that someone has found a book full of these stamps in a cellar somewhere so his stamp has lost a lage proportion of its value.

The person selling him the stamp didnt know this so can the collector now sue the seller because the stamp is worth less then he originally thought?

The dealership were not obliged to offer anything for the car, it was their choice.

Will they win a claim against the OP's son?

almost certainly not.

He could call their bluff and say well then I will have my old car back and you can have the new one back and you owe me lost of money and see if they leap at that business opportunity.

Nah, someone got a bollocking from HO fro being sloppy and now they are trying it on to ease their own guilt.