Broken-down van

Hintza

vaio wrote: »

Do they?

I thought they had to put you in the position you would have been in had they not breached the contract?

Back to the usual repair, replace or refund.

They have said repair is impractical and too costly.

Replacement would be possible but the OP would be better placed to choose their own replacement.

Refund will allow for replacement. If the refund won't allow for replacement then I would again suggest there were known problems with the van which were reflected in the price (turns out the problems were worse than anticipated).

vaio

apart from the fact that I struggle to believe an engine issue could render a £10k+ van unrepairable, the usual repair, replace or refund isn't the limit of the remedies available.

In addition to that I think that any consequential costs would also be recoverable under normal contract law

soba

Thanks for all the replies. I was hoping that there'd be a simple answer to the recovery of any (mitigated) costs but it looks like it's not that straigtforward.
I'm with the FSB so I'll give their legal helpline a call today and see if they can clarify. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

arcon5

Although I accept SoGA is a tricky issue with B2B transactions, we're not sure whether the dealer has terms over riding this or not, so if he doesn't a very important aspect of SOGA is the following:

(3)The buyer must not require the seller to repair or, as the case may be, replace the goods if that remedy is—
(a)impossible, or
(b)disproportionate in comparison to the other of those remedies, or

So if the dealer thinks the cost of repairs will be disproportionate to the cost of the refund (which won't be £10k as he may well have options himself for the van) then he is doing nothing more than enforcing his obligations and rights under the act.


In determining your losses though op remember, had the contract been completed successfully you'd still be incurring costs. For example, say you expected to have the van for 5 years and it to have a residual value of £2k - that's a charge of £133.33 per month + insurance + maintenance + VED. So maybe running in to £250 per month.
So if you go out and rent a van for say £300 - your consequential losses would be £50.

Point is, you cannot just say 'I had to rent a van, it cost me £300 and I want you to pay it'.
So when you start making some real computations it depends how far you want to take what could be quite a small amount of money in the long run.

lincroft1710

vaio wrote: »

I struggle to believe an engine issue could render a £10k+ van unrepairable

I also find this difficult to believe.

soba

lincroft1710 wrote: »

I also find this difficult to believe.

Me also. They said that if they fixed it for me they would be at a loss so prefered to send it to auction.

arcon5

I suspect the dealer has just discovered a number of faults making the vehicle a ticking time bomb - and with an expensive repair about to wipe out most of his profit margin anyway he'd rather just send it to auction and try at least breakeven or thereabouts whilst releasing all obligations towards any buyer of the lemon of a van at the same time.