Dealer refusing to refund deposit.

Weird_Nev

Anyone who agrees to pay £4000 for a Mk2 golf is getting ripped off anyway. Be glad it's only for £400, not £4k.

It doesn't sound anything special, at all. 7 owner car with normal miles? Rare colour? that's Scene tax my friend. If £400 means that much to you and your wife, why are you spunking cash like water on overpriced old tat?

Never, EVER give a deposit unless you are 100% sure you are buying that exact car. Believe it or not, 22 year old Golfs don't walk out of the showroom with a £4k price tag in the window. It will be there tomorrow. Hell, it'll probably be there in 6 months!

GO and leave notes under the windscreen wipers of tidy looking old golfs outside nice big houses. You might just get a bite. One mate of mine got a one owner Fiesta RS for £400 this way, and another got a Mk1 GOlf Gti for £600.

System

Am I the only person that thinks a deposit is non-refundable by default - i know the dealer hasn't said it was non-refundable, but then, he didn't say it was refundable either...
the deposit is to secure the car and stop the dealer selling it - if you didn't want to buy it then you shouldn't have put any money down

sirfragalot84 wrote: »

One more thing to note is he advertised the car as having 6 owners and upon checking it actually has 7. Could I argue he has misled me with the advert, under the SOGA 1979?

6 previous owner + the current owner is 7

sirfragalot84 wrote: »

He has effectively made £400 for nothing, if he does this to everyone who changes their mind he would potentially be a very wealthy man.

pretty sure that most people that put a deposit down actually go through with the sale!!

Dukesy

Weird_Nev wrote: »

Anyone who agrees to pay £4000 for a Mk2 golf is getting ripped off anyway. Be glad it's only for £400, not £4k.

It doesn't sound anything special, at all. 7 owner car with normal miles? Rare colour? that's Scene tax my friend. If £400 means that much to you and your wife, why are you spunking cash like water on overpriced old tat?

Never, EVER give a deposit unless you are 100% sure you are buying that exact car. Believe it or not, 22 year old Golfs don't walk out of the showroom with a £4k price tag in the window. It will be there tomorrow. Hell, it'll probably be there in 6 months!

GO and leave notes under the windscreen wipers of tidy looking old golfs outside nice big houses. You might just get a bite. One mate of mine got a one owner Fiesta RS for £400 this way, and another got a Mk1 GOlf Gti for £600.

This. Spending £4000 on one is, quite frankly, madness. As I've said in my previous post, I know perfectly well how much they are actually worth, and someone has been leading OP well and truly down the garden path.

OP, you may have seen Mk2s ADVERTISED for silly money, but that certainly doesn't mean they'll fetch it! Have a look at the Mk2 owners club forum - that should give you a blummin' good idea of what you should actually expect to pay.

spacey2012

The position is a deposit is a bond, that bond is an amount placed to honour and fulfil a contract.
The holder of that deposit bond is allowed to keep any portion they can reasonable justify .
You can sue in court for a district judge to decide what is reasonable and they can ask the dealer to justify the amount of loss suffered by failure to adhere to the contract.

Does this get you your money back, usually no, this is because you may have paid a LTD company with no assets, or a stock holding LTD company on commission or a sole trader who already has several CCJ's and could not care less.

We see this argument daily on these boards by people who do not understand the implications of paying a deposit and then backing out.

The chances of getting a CCJ are very good, the chances of actually getting your money back are next to nothing.

Never place a deposit you are not prepared to lose.
The larger amount of deposit you place before you exchange goods, the larger amount you are prepared to lose.
They hold the money and goods , you hold a piece of paper as security.

Own_My_Own

Op
Whose to say the dealer didn't turn someone away because of the deposit. Very unlikely,but it may have happened.

And if the dealer just gave everyone back their deposit he could end up with a forecourt full of unsaleable reserved cars.

He is not getting the money for nothing. He is getting the money for keeping the car for you and not selling it to anyone else.
If you still wanted the car,would you not be annoyed if you went back today to get it to find he had sold it to someone else, even with your deposit on it.

colino

Sorry for the slight topic drift, but this comes up all of the time. Place yourself in the shoes of a trader with an item that represents most peoples second highest purchase. What do you think the purpose of a deposit is and how much do you think is credible to reserve an item presented for sale in the thousands? In general people will have passed the credibility test before it gets to the stage of taking a deposit, but we've all been burned and 10% is reasonable to persuade a buyer to really think about the outlay and not to abandon it willy-nilly and leave a prepped car gathering dust.

Tilt

I doubt the dealer would be selling cars if he was a qualified barrister!

That aside, I believe that the dealer is entitled to retain a reasonable amount of the deposit to cover his costs (if any).

I doubt that £400 would be considered reasonable (unless it was written in the contract of sale) by a judge.

Personally I think the OP has been perfectly reasonable. But you now need to write formally to the dealer outlining your position, confirm your offer and request the balance of your deposit back on the grounds that a formal contract to purchase the car was not signed.

Ultimately it could be for a district judge to decide if/what proportion of your deposit should be returned. Seeing as the dealer is a qualified barrister, at least he won't need legal representation!

mattyprice4004

Money is tight and you're dropping £4k on an old Golf? You have your priorities wrong.

Weird_Nev

Here you go, Buy this one for £1k and think of it as saving yourself £2600.

Yes, I'm aware it's a mk3, but it's a better car in every objective sense. Also, it can only appreciate! If Mk2's are worth £4k, but this time next year, you'll be a millionaire!

Dukesy

Weird_Nev wrote: »

Here you go, Buy this one for £1k and think of it as saving yourself £2600.

Yes, I'm aware it's a mk3, but it's a better car in every objective sense. Also, it can only appreciate! If Mk2's are worth £4k, but this time next year, you'll be a millionaire!

Mk3s may be more advanced, but they don't have as much soul. I may be a bit eccentric, but I use a Mk2 as a daily driver (even took a trip from Herefordshire to Scotland and back for our hol in it with no prob whatsoever) and love driving the thing - Mk3s just don't have the same feeling to them.

That doesn't matter though, because after only a couple of mins on the internet, I've found plenty of very nice Mk2s for around the grand mark and below, if that's what OP wants!