Need Desperate help! Cat D right off am i entitled to deposit back?!?

Robp_2

Hi sorry for the long winded post in advance!

Started when me and the mrs went to buy a 2003 reg nissan micra off auto trader. didnt have all of the money for it at the time which was £2000 so we left a £500 deposit and said we would pay the rest off next week as thats when we had the cash to which he was fine with, couple of days after paying the deposit we found out it was a CATD right off in 2003 so we went and asked for our money back which he agreed to once he sold the car anyway few weeks down the line rang him and asked him if he had sold the car to which he had said no same went on for a couple of months and after many avoided calls and ignored visits to his house we spoke to him and he said he had sold it to a freind of a freind but still dosent have the money after another 3 weeks of avoiding our calls we finally spoke to him and he said he has now spoke to his solicitor (which i dont believe after all the previous lies) and very very poor english he said his solicitor has advised him to not pay us any money which we said fine in that case we will see you in a small claims court after trying to round up as much info from him as possible i rang auto trader who told me ''A private seller is no longer a private seller after the sale of 5 cars, he has sold 53 cars since december 2008 clearly making him a trader'' i requested all the info they had on him but obviously due to data protection i had to speak to trading standards to request this, I spoke to them within 5 min's of speaking to autotrader and they didnt have a clue what they was talking about after being put on hold 4/5 times and 3 different people passing me round i spoke to the manager who said he dosent have to realease the fact it was a CAT D which i thought is true for a private seller but NOT a trader so in there opinion i dont really have a leg to stand on! can anybody shed any light on this whatsoever because in this climate i need all the money i can get! thanks in advance!!

Rob

ssimon

A private seller dose not have to advertise a car as CAT D (he might not know himself) but a trader dose.
how ever many cars he has sold in the past, if he hasn't got a forecourt and buy & sell cars for his main occupation he is not classed as a trader. therefore dose not have to advertise it is a CAT D even if he knows about it.
a CAT D right off is usually only cosmetic damage and when repaired is as good as new. if you was happy with the car when you viewed it then you shouldn't see this as been a problem. although if you don't like the idea of having a car that is a CAT D which some people don't then you should have had the car HPI checked before leaving a deposit.
As for your deposit, there usually are none refundable and if you pull out of a deal it is usually lost. Did you get a recipt for your deposit? if so you should go to a solicitor or citizons advice and see what they say about your entitlment for it back, although i think you will be lucky if you are.
You could try going to his house every day an demanding your money back as he might get fed up of you hassleing him and do the right thing an give you it back.

Good luck

Lorian

I'm out of breath.

motorguy

Too much of this willfully wrong to ignore.

ssimon wrote: »

A private seller dose not have to advertise a car as CAT D (he might not know himself) but a trader dose.
how ever many cars he has sold in the past, if he hasn't got a forecourt and buy & sell cars for his main occupation he is not classed as a trader. therefore dose not have to advertise it is a CAT D even if he knows about it.

If you buy a car to sell for profit, then you are a trader and obliged to give your customers certain rights. Not having a forecourt is nonsense.

ssimon wrote: »

a CAT D right off is usually only cosmetic damage and when repaired is as good as new.

No, No, No. The definition of a CAT D write off is "is a Salvaged Vehicle, which is damaged to the extent that the retail cost of repair to the vehicle does not exceed the retail pre-accident value thereof. ", for example, a £5000 car may cost £4500 to repair, therefore the insurance company has declined to do so.

If it was merely panel damage, the insurance company would just generally have it fix. It would need to be reasonably severe for the insurance company not to deem it worthwhile.

Also you have no guarantees it was repaired to a high standard.

ssimon wrote: »

if you was happy with the car when you viewed it then you shouldn't see this as been a problem. although if you don't like the idea of having a car that is a CAT D which some people don't then you should have had the car HPI checked before leaving a deposit.

It IS a problem in that the car will invariably be worth less, may not have be repaired to the correct standard, and *could* be unroadworthy

zappahey

ssimon wrote: »

how ever many cars he has sold in the past, if he hasn't got a forecourt and buy & sell cars for his main occupation he is not classed as a trader.

This bit is not correct, buying and selling for profit is all that it takes to be defined as a trader and, therefore, a requirement to comply with all relevant legislation.

Edit: Gah, sidetracked by pesky work, so I see pgilc1 has just made the same point.

ssimon

If it was merely panel damage, the insurance company would just generally have it fix. It would need to be reasonably severe for the insurance company not to deem it worthwhile.

This is not the case. i have bought a few cars in the past straight from insurance company's that have been CAT D and CAT C and had them repaired my self (for my own use not to sell for profit) the last 2 i bought one was a cat d and it needed a new bumper and a bonnet (the bumper was cracked & bonnet had a slight kink in it) these cost less than £50 and was repaired in less than an hour, the parts were 2nd hand and already the correct color.
the other was a CAT C which is classed as more than the car is worth to repair. again it was only panel damage and only needed a front bumper to repair which cost me £20. the car was worth approx £2000 and only cost a total of £450 with the repair.

It IS a problem in that the car will invariably be worth less, may not have be repaired to the correct standard, and *could* be unroadworthy

yes the car will be worth less but only 10-25%
and as for been unroadworthy the car wouldn't pass an MOT if that was the case. Plus if it is only panel damage which part of replacing a panel would make the car unroadworthy???

Silk

I'm a bit rusty on this but as far as I'm aware the guideline for selling more than 4 cars a year to be classed as a MT is one that was for the likes of Autotrader and classified ads people to use to decide whether it was private individuals or not. If Autotrader has admitted that he has sold 53 cars and they have not classed him as a trader in the ads I think there is a responsability to the ASA ?????
As far as HMRC is concerned he could be classed as a MT either full time if no other income or PT if he had another income. I think the number of cars sold to interest the Inland Revenue used to be 6 but if they flagged up anything over 10 they would start having a serious look.

I'm pretty sure the difference regarding declaration of a cat d etc is that you have to ask if its ever been one and if a private seller says no and turns out to be wrong theres nothing you can do about it.
If you ask a trader if it has been one and he says no but it has he is at fault as he should have been in aware of it etc.

These are the details of the various ones....
Category A: A vehicle which should have been totally crushed, including all its spare parts.
Category B: A vehicle from which spare parts may be salvaged, but the bodyshell should have been crushed and the car should never return to the road.
Category C: An extensively damaged vehicle which the insurer has decided not to repair, but which could be repaired and returned to the road.
Category A damaged vehicle which the insurer has decided not to repair, but which could be repaired and returned to the road.
Category F: A vehicle damaged by fire, which the insurer has decided not to repair.
Theft: These vehicles have not been recovered and ownership rests with the insurer who made the total loss payment. They are able to repossess the car as soon as it is identified, even if it has been bought innocently.
Vehicles categorised as A, B or C require a VIC test before the DVLA will issue a new registration document. This will then be noted on the V5C.

motorguy

ssimon wrote: »

This is not the case. i have bought a few cars in the past straight from insurance company's that have been CAT D and CAT C and had them repaired my self (for my own use not to sell for profit) the last 2 i bought one was a cat d and it needed a new bumper and a bonnet (the bumper was cracked & bonnet had a slight kink in it) these cost less than £50 and was repaired in less than an hour, the parts were 2nd hand and already the correct color.
the other was a CAT C which is classed as more than the car is worth to repair. again it was only panel damage and only needed a front bumper to repair which cost me £20. the car was worth approx £2000 and only cost a total of £450 with the repair.

yes the car will be worth less but only 10-25%
and as for been unroadworthy the car wouldn't pass an MOT if that was the case. Plus if it is only panel damage which part of replacing a panel would make the car unroadworthy???

I would suggest that the cars you have dealt with are relatively cheap, therefore the replacement of a bumper, wing and bonnet may have caused the insurer to decide not to - that could easily cost £800 and on a car up to £1000 thats probably not viable. CAT D status on a car worth £5000 is going to mean considerably more than a wing an a bumper repair.

I'd be very surprised if a car of status 'CAT C - repair costs exceed value of car' would attain that status for the sake of a bumper? That seems odd that the insurance company would do that? Perhaps they spotted more than you? Perhaps there was panel damage behind the bumper? Did you have the chassis checked for alignment for example?

Again these things are all very well on a project for yourself, not so good when you've bought it as a genuine car for maybe a quite considerable sum of a purchasers hard earned.

If i was buying a car at say, £5000 and found it was a repaired CAT D write off and was worth 25% less, i'd be out of pocket to the tune of £1250. Would you not agree that is considerable?

Also, theres quite a difference between buying a CAT D, fixing it yourself and driving it, than to have bought what you thought was a genuine car, only to find it had been written off by an insurance company, and repaired 'on the cheap' and sold on as a genuine car.

motorguy

Its also worth noting that some insurance companies will not cover you if you have bought a CAT D / CAT C car, and that if you subsequently have an accident in it, they will often pay out considerably less.

But i'm sure you told your insurance company that you've been driving around in a self repaired write off SSimon?

ssimon

I'd be very surprised if a car of status 'CAT C - repair costs exceed value of car' would attain that status for the sake of a bumper? That seems odd that the insurance company would do that? Perhaps they spotted more than you? Perhaps there was panel damage behind the bumper? Did you have the chassis checked for alignment for example?

insurance company's do this all the time just because of a bumper and a bonnet been damaged. for there to be chassis damage to the car it has to be a worse collision than just a few body panels damaged. and no there wasn't any damage behind the bumper. even if there was repairing it wouldn't make it unroadworthy
have a look on some internet salvage auctions and you'll see what little damage some cat c's have.

I agree about been out of pocket if you buy one thinking it is genuine, but if this sort of thing bothers you, you should have it HPI'd before you leave a deposit.
in the case of the OP if i was in there position i would have gone and asked for some money knocking off the asking price before losing my deposit.

dacouch

piglc the reason a car can be a Cat C or Cat D write off and be bouught by Joe Public and repaired cheaply is that the Insurers normally have to use new manufacturers parts to repair and need to repair all damage caused by the accident. Joe Public can buy generic parts or used parts from a salvage yard / ebay, do the work themselves or get a cash deal from a garage and if they are happy to live with a few minor scratches or small dents they can.

The Insurer has too give the car back to their customer in "pre accident condition"