High risk vehicle - Unable to sell or part ex

moose24

Hi all, was wondering if anyone could help with a situation I have with my vehicle. Let me begin...

I bought an 03 plate Ford Ka in Aug 2011 from a local dealer for £2,000, for the missus I might ad, paid for on a credit card, and recently decided we would like to part exchange it for something else.

However unbeknownst to us when we went to another local garage to get our car valued they did an Experian check on it and it came back as high risk.

After a little digging around the problem is as follows:

It turns out that in 2003 when it was first sold by a car dealer it was purchased by someone fraudulently, now I don't have the full details but it may have been a cheque that bounced or another payment that failed (it was not finance). This dealer then put a high risk marker on the car as it was never paid for, was told by police that it was a civil matter and he has always been out of pocket. Since then the car has had 3 other registered owners most likely unawares of this problem.

Now I have spoken to citizens advice about this and they say I need to get some kind of written agreement form the very first dealer, who is still out of pocket, so that i can have legal entitlement to the vehicle (or get him to remove the marker with experian). However I have spoken to the dealer and he wants £350 for the pleasure! (which i guess is understandable as he is probably a few grand down - even if it was 10 years ago).

However citizens advice also suggested that I go back to where i purchased it from locally and make then aware of the situation and ask them to pay up for what has happened (or come to some sort of agreement) as they said I would be classed as an 'innocent purchaser'. As you can imagine that didn't go down well when I rang the garage i bought it from...and in fact I am still waiting for a phone call back from them that I imagine I will never receive...or if I do it will be some billy bull**** excuse (pardon my french).

The other thing citizens advice mentioned was to then take the local garage where i bought it from to the small claims court and make them cough up that way. But that would be costly and probably take about 6 months to sort out.

Either way I think it's a bit rubbish that I stand to be out of pocket for something I had no idea about when I bought the vehicle, I thought I was buying form a reputable second hand dealer (if you can call them that these days) so just assumed everything would be okay.

So...I was just wondering if anyone else had experienced this and could offer any advice please? Or do you think I should just try and take it somewhere else to part exchange (such as car craft or webuyanycar etc) just to get it off my hands, and then hope for the best it doesnt come back to bite me at some point.

However my worry is that if I do flog it on to someone I will end up in the same situation as I am now and whoever buys it might come to me to get their money back or ask for the money to pay out the dealer from 10 years ago!!

I had a quick look around the forum but could only find things like this related to hire purchases etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated and if the above is not clear enough let me know and I will try and explain it a bit better.

Thank you!

UsernameAlreadyExists

Interesting situation

Pragmatically, I'd think that when you come to sell it (privately) no-one's going to bother HPI checking an '03 Ka ... and if they do then wait for the next buyer instead.

You've spoken with the orginal dealer, and he's cheekily asked for £350 to remove the mark ... but he's not tried to reclaim the car or sue you ... so where's the actual problem here? ... it's got a black mark on it's record that doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference!

TrickyWicky

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

Pragmatically, I'd think that when you come to sell it (privately) no-one's going to bother HPI checking an '03

Really? I HPI check 98 cars that are bought for a few hundred. Last thing I want is the blue lights behind me and I would imagine plenty of other people are the same.

@moose put something in writing to the dealer you bought the car from asking for them to sort this out as they have sold you a car with outstanding finance. This is their responsibility as they sold it to you. Sure they may try to ignore you so you'll just have to continue pestering them.

mattyprice4004

Most private buyers honestly won't bother checking a 10 year old banger like a Ka - you'll be fine

Just sell it privately.

Hintza

TrickyWicky wrote: »

........ and I would imagine plenty of other people are the same.

Not me .

moose24

hi, thank you for the quick reply.

good point by the way, i suppose i will just have to go down the private route if that's what it takes.

my main concern was that if I have found this out and have been given advice such as to go to small claims court etc, will someone eventually come knocking on my door demanding money from me if they find out the same about the vehicle (e.g. if the person who i sell it to privately finds out whats gone on). As presumably i will become the next in line responsible for this mess like the dealer who i bought it from is now.

mattyprice4004

On a cheap runabout I highly doubt that'd be an issue.

Also, doesn't statute of limitation only mean they'd have 6 years to chase you for the money?

moose24

just seen the other replies...u lot are too fast for me!!

you are right about it being a banger!

@tricky - thats what citizens advice said to do, which i presume will then become a long drawn out process.

@matty and hintza - if i fell for it them im sure someone else will, thats not to say i'll feel good about it tho.

moose24

@matty - that was mentioned by citizens but from what i understood isnt that only for outstanding finance? the original payment wasnt on finance so was unsure if that would apply? Citizens advice mentioned the prescriptions and limitations act.

colino

Right so you bought a car from a dealer who didn't vet the car but you went to CAB for advice? CAB are a joke with more useless volunteers than your average charity shop. The paid employee no doubt will be an earnest soul who looked up adviserline on the pc and told you exactly the wrong thing to do.
The trader has a problem because he sold you a car with a marker on it. It's his job to check.
You have volunteered yourself for a civil case however by identifying yourself and made yourself aware of the cars unsavoury background to the original, out of pocket, trader.
Short cut is to get the trader you bought it from to negotiate direct with the wronged one and I'm sure you wouldn't simply try to pass this problem on by selling privately.

worried_jim

Just sell it privately- you'll get more than part exchange anyway so you'd be stupid not to.