Private car sale rights

Equaliser123

Aginoth wrote: »

nope, sent me a final threatening letter the day before the case then didn't bother to show up...bit of an embugrance because he had had the case move to his local court; a seven hour round trip for me, but that added £100 in travel costs to his final amount owing.

Baliffs fees have just added another £100 and the additional baliff visit cost should add another £300-400 to that.

If he had just settled originally it would have cost him just short of £500, after court £700, after baliffs around £1100.

So to be fair it was a non-contested hearing.

Aginoth

Equaliser123 wrote: »

So to be fair it was a non-contested hearing.

Nope, not undefended, he entered a paper defence and a full statement to the court, which the judge tore to shreds, not suprising as it was a pack of lies.

DebtHater

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Why? He wouldn't have had a leg to stand on anyway as it is a private sale, sold as seen.

Not entirely true, as other posters have stated. There is no such thing as "sold as seen" in a court of law. Hard to believe, I know, but a small claims court will not rule in the buyers favour based purely on the "sold as seen" rule.
The seller, the OP, will have to have lied about the condition of the vehicle, or would have done something to make the car seem OK.

OP, if you have been truthful about the car, the onus is on the buyer to prove you werent telling the truth. Very difficult to do if you havent lied :rotfl:

Instead of all the "sold as seen" and "buyer beware" stuff, there are simple rules when selling a car. Different rules for private sellers and traders.
Seeing as OP is a private seller, all that they would have to do is be truthful about the condition of the car. This, however, does not mean that they need to be a fully trained mechanic and know every single thing about the car. The onus will still be on the buyer to prove the seller knew about the faults and deliberately didnt say or "bent the truth".

I speak from experience. I too have taken a seller to court, because he lied about the condition of a car. It went to court, and I won, because of all the lies and threats the seller had made etc. It was then that the seller was talking about "sold as seen" and "buyer beware", to which the judge reeled off a load of laws and regulations that justified the court result, sold as seen simply does not exist.
The judge left it with me as to what I wanted to do, either full refund + costs, half refund and keep the car, etc etc. I kept the car and took a half refund + costs, so I got £500 to cover the repairs to the vehicle. I ended up selling the vehicle for £400 because I didnt have the knowledge to repair the car, I originally purchased for £800 and had to spend £100 approx on mechanic reports and tow trucks after the break down, so ended up breaking even.

You mentioned that you spent money on repairs just before the sale? Keep those receipts. Any half-decent garage would do a quick check of the car anyway, and if faults/problems were noticeable, they would have told you, in the hope that you would get the work done with them.

And I would have recommended to the buyer about taking a test drive. Providing they have the correct insurance to do so, any buyers should test drive before purchase.

4743hudsonj

Debthater hate to rain on your parade but "buyer beware" is most definitely a legal principle. The actual legal principle is Caveat Emptor (which is latin for buyer beware and is mostly the doctrine for private property law).

On top of that it does apply and is a legitimate defence, your case was won as the seller made a misrepresentation.

DebtHater

4743hudsonj wrote: »

Debthater hate to rain on your parade but "buyer beware" is most definitely a legal principle. The actual legal principle is Caveat Emptor (which is latin for buyer beware and is mostly the doctrine for private property law).

On top of that it does apply and is a legitimate defence, your case was won as the seller made a misrepresentation.

Look it up. Sold as seen has no legal standing

pinkshoes

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Why? He wouldn't have had a leg to stand on anyway as it is a private sale, sold as seen.

In theory yes, but in practice, there have been many cases where this has been over-ruled, particularly if it can be proven that the seller lied about the condition of the car.

I know someone who has just won a court case like this as they found evidence to show that a seller already knew the car they bought had problems, and had just temporarily masked them.

Equaliser123

DebtHater wrote: »

Look it up. Sold as seen has no legal standing

Absolute rubbish. As Hudson says - caveat emptor applies subject to the rules on misrepresentation.

Oh, and I don't need to look it up. 3 years law degree drums this sort of thing into you.

Equaliser123

pinkshoes wrote: »

I know someone who has just won a court case like this as they found evidence to show that a seller already knew the car they bought had problems, and had just temporarily masked them.

Then that is a misrepresentation....

4743hudsonj

DebtHater wrote: »

Look it up. Sold as seen has no legal standing

Sold as seen is the same of buyer beware.

Buyer beware in latin translates to caveat emptor.

Caveat emptor IS (why dont you look it up) a legal principle and is a reliable defence in private sales.

Infact i dont thik your capable of a simple google so HERE

The reason people use sold as seen is people like you have no idea what caveat emptor means, so they use laymans terms.

A lot of you are confusing the rules of buyer beware and misrepresentation. Yes buyer beware is a defence, providing the item was not misrepresented (ie lied about condition etc) they are different things, in the ops case, it looks like there was no misrepresentation so caveat emptor applies (just re-iterating what Equaliser has said)

Equaliser123

4743hudsonj wrote: »

Sold as seen is the same of buyer beware.

Buyer beware in latin translates to caveat emptor.

Caveat emptor IS (why dont you look it up) a legal principle and is a reliable defence in private sales.

Infact i dont thik your capable of a simple google so HERE

The reason people use sold as seen is people like you have no idea what caveat emptor means, so they use laymans terms.

A lot of you are confusing the rules of buyer beware and misrepresentation. Yes buyer beware is a defence, providing the item was not misrepresented (ie lied about condition etc) they are different things, in the ops case, it looks like there was no misrepresentation so caveat emptor applies (just re-iterating what Equaliser has said)

100% correct.