Deposit refund on new car

pinkshoes

Kamikz wrote: »

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.

If it was something like a Morgan you were purchasing, then you can probably sell your "place in the waiting list" to someone else... Specialised car manufacturers often won't let people do this, but in this instance they seem to be permitting it, so why don't you just sell the deposit and place in the queue to someone else? You'll no doubt get your £3k back. Just advertise in a suitable newspaper.

As for accusing people of slagging you off, you really shouldn't be so sensitive, as people have offered you some really good advice here.

Tozer

Legally, there are good arguments (and precedents) to say that deposits should be refundable.

Same principle in law as that in respect of penalty charges. If the deposit is not a genuine pre-estimate of the loss of not proceeding with the contract, then it is penal in nature and void under English law.

Kamikz

CHR15 wrote: »

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.

OK, maybe I deleted the thread a bit early as its a hard time at the moment and all I was getting was people like you suggesting that when ordering the car I couldn't afford it and was "punching above my weight" as you put it.

The reason I went from being able to afford the car to not being able to is I'm a contractor and at the time of ordering the car was earning £6k-£7k per month and had been for the previous 18 months, little was I to know the economy was about to fall on its !!!! and put me in the position of bigger gaps between contracts and the rates falling to closer to £3k per month.

Thanks to those who offered genuine advice, unfortunately I can't sell the place on the list as the manufacturer refuses to allow me to sell on the place.

Tozer, thanks for the info, thats the sort of start position I was looking for, where can I get more info on this?

Takoda

So why aren't you naming the 'small British company' who are being so hard on you?

Are you legally obliged to buy the car in August?

Why not tell them you still want it but will have to wait until the economy picks up? Then they could give your car to the next person on the list and you simply move down the list until you are able to afford your car. Maybe a too simplistic an idea but it might be worth a go unless you ordered a specific car with certain extras over and above the norm.

I'd certainly try every option before I waved goodbye to MY deposit.

The nature of MSE is that for every 'useful' post there will be 10 or so mickey takers, jealous types, keyboard warriors, people who think it is funny to mock folk who are in trouble etc. At certain times it is worse than others but in this thread anyway I reckon you got off lightly.

Good luck with it. I bet you're gutted about not getting your car after all. Hope it all works out.