Deposit refund on new car

Kamikz

Was looking for legal advice, not a slagging off, great community you've got here.

MarkyMarkD

The point of a deposit is a sign of faith and commitment to the deal by the purchaser.

As a standard thing, deposits are not refundable - if they were, there would be no point in them.

Contracts do not need to be in writing to be legally binding.

I don't think you have a leg to stand on. As they suggest, you could sell the car on (in view of the waiting time) and get the money from the buyer to pass on to the manufacturer. If this will result in you losing less than the deposit, it makes sense.

I don't know whether you can effectively sell your place in the waiting list on to someone, in exchange for the £3k now - to meet your cashflow needs - but that sounds worth considering.

scullster

I agree with MarkyMarkD wholeheartedly.

The credit crunch is hitting us all, and the car manufacturing industry as been hit particularly hard, more so the small independents.

But I've little sympathy either - who would commit themselves to a purchase they couldn't afford, you've commited £3k which you cannot afford to lose, nevermind the £27k you are due to pay. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night unless the money was already in the bank.

Back in December you had debts of £22k you were looking to clear (check OP's post history - debt free wannabe), was the £27k included in that or were the true debts £49k?

I'm sorry if this is harsh but I have a view on risk takers, especially those who accrue bad debts.

myrnahaz

You could try 'selling' your deposit. There could be someone who wants to buy one of these cars but doesn't want to wait on a waiting list, so they'll buy your deposit from you - is there a magazine or website dedicated to this car - you could advertise.

CHR15

The manufacturer must have the waiting list, see if they will negotiate for you with someone further down the list.

I doubt they will give you any info due to Data Protection but they must have people registered an interest but not deposited yet.

or Ebay

Pollycat

Kamikz wrote: »

Was looking for legal advice, not a slagging off, great community you've got here.

I can't see why you've taken such offence to the replies you've received.

Or were you looking for people to tell you what you obviously wanted to hear - that you could legally get your deposit back?

If you were, you've obviously found the wrong website. :rolleyes:

CHR15

With that attitude, it may be some time before the OP finds another Job.

I hope he doesn't abuse the Bus Driver the same.

Pollycat

I think the OP is fed up with this community:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=19413967&highlight=#post19413967
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=18246093&highlight=#post18246093
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=6646813&highlight=#post6646813

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

scullster

"Taking your bat and ball home".... "Toys out of the pram".....

This thread doesn't have the necessary ring to it any more as the OP has deleted his original post, and a valuable lesson could be lost. If only I could find the original post.............

(Google cached pages to the rescue) - the original post verbatim:


Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice and ideas on where to proceed from my current position. The story is:

I ordered a new car in Feb 2008 from a small british car manufacturer (they make about 200 cars/year) and I paid a £3000 deposit. No contract was signed but I did recieve a receipt for my deposit. The car has an approximately 18 month waiting list, so is due around August this year. The total cost of the car is about £30k depending on the spec, I have yet to be asked for the specification of the car and therefore I know the build of it hasn't yet started (as they ask for a further 40% before starting the build).

Unfortunately due to the current economy I am not earning anywhere near as much as I was 18 months ago and thus not in a position to buy the car, so I wrote to them requesting a refund for my deposit, they have refused to refund the deposit and when I stated to them that it was never mentioned that the deposit was non-refundable and that no contract was signed stating so they responded with:

Quote:
Without Prejudice

Thank you for your mail and whilst we appreciate your situation we do have to apply the same rules to all our customers to treat everybody fairly. Legally you have ordered a car and we have accepted the order to build you a car. A contract is therefore in place. Technically we could insist that you go through with the order or at the very least pay any resultant loss of profit that we may suffer from cancellation of the order. Likewise if we cancelled your order you could claim any losses from us. However, as you hopefully understand, we do not want to operate in this way and have no wish to fall out with any customers and are trying to be helpful. My suggestion of postponing the car for 12 months has worked very well in a couple of cases with other customers and it is worth considering. One alternative is to go ahead with the car and sell it. Prices are still very buoyant and you may make a profit on the sale of a new car but obviously you would have to pay for it in full first. If you do wish to cancel outright then, on a without prejudice basis, we would not pursue you for any losses we would suffer from not making the sale. We would also look beneficially on any re-order of a car at a future date. Having tested this legally my advice to you would be to postpone the order for 12 months and review the situation next year. Do bear in mind that if you restart the order next year that it is highly likely you would not get the car (and having nothing further to pay) until 2011. Hopefully by this time your position will be back to normal.
So fair enough they have offered to delay the car, but I'm in the financial position now that I need the £3k deposit. I don't want to have to back out of buying the car as it is a car I really want, but I don't really have a choice.

What can I do, do I have a legal right to my deposit or am I stuck in the position of doing as they say?
And if I was to pursue them legally for the money back and lost then would that mean the contract would then be cancelled and I would lose out on the car and the deposit? (I ask this as I could sell the car and would lose less than the deposit value as the cars are rare and in demand)

I haven't mentioned the car name as I don't want it to be able to appear in search results, so if you know what the car is that I'm talking about then please don't mention the name or manufacturer in this post.

williham

lol I don't even see how the advice given is slagging off.. there's some quite good suggestions.

CHR15

How can you go from committing to buy a car costing £30,000 but then not being able to afford to lose £3,000??
Even a Job loss doesn't explain it.

It sounds like the OP was always going to struggle as he has been punching above his weight and overcommitting his finances (or the banks).

No doubt enjoyed boasting to the neighbours and family about his brand new car he is buying.