stable door shut, after horse bolted, Loss of bargain?

sadanorakman

Hi, first post; not sure in right section, so moderator please move if necessary.


Do you think I have a case to sue this moron for loss of bargain?:


I bought a caravan from a private ebay seller in February. It was pictured with a stabilising hitch fitted, but when I went to collect the van (after paying for it), the hitch had been removed!


I insisted that for me to accept the van, a stabilising hitch must be supplied, and the seller agreed, making note on the receipt that hitch was to be supplied afterward.


He said that he received vans in all the time (private dealer), and should have a hitch within about a fortnight.


The caravan was quite hairy to tow home without a stabiliser, snaking on several occasions when HGV's were near, so I felt I could not reasonably risk towing it again without stabilisation, certainly not with my family in the car.


I then contacted the seller regularly over a period of four full months, asking for him to supply the hitch, and explained that I could not safely use the van until it was supplied. Seller made excuse after excuse, whilst offering no proof to back up these excuses (real dog-ate-my-homework type stuff.) Often my messages were not replied to at all.


I told him two weeks prior to Easter that I wanted to take the van away at the Easter break, and he was stopping me doing this by his continued inaction... Needless to say, Easter came and went without resolve, with my van still unused.


I informed him twice, several weeks apart that if he continued to not honour our contract, I would have no choice but to buy a hitch and pursue him for the cost, as I owned a van sitting on my drive which I should reasonably expect to be able to use, but could not.


Eventually he promised to have a hitch to me by the end of May. I again waited and waited, but no hitch arrived, nor did he contact me to explain why not.


Eventually two weeks into June I decided that I had no alternative but to buy a hitch myself, and send him a letter demanding he pay for it. To not have a hitch, would have prevented me taking my summer holiday, which I had already booked and paid for, and I could not risk losing that. (I saw buying a hitch as mitigating the risk of losing my holiday)


A day after he received my demand, he rang me to say he had received my letter, and now had a hitch ready to send. I told him he was simply too late, under no circumstances should he send any hitch, and if he did, I would refuse delivery.


So he sent a hitch anyway! ...only three days after our call, which leads me to believe he called me out of the sheer panic of receiving my demand, yet still didn't have a hitch to send at that point! Unfortunately the courier left it with my Neighbour whilst I was out, so I had no opportunity to decline the delivery.


He has subsequently emailed arguing that there was no timescale stated on my receipt, and that he had now delivered what he owed, hence I have no grounds to take the matter any further.


Too late, too late... I already paid to have the hitch I bought fitted to my van, and I have used it already. To now remove and sell it would cost me further time, inconvenience, and money, and I may not see the amount back that I paid for it.


In my opinion, he has had four months to meet his obligations, been constantly driven during this time over the matter, warned twice, and failed on a third occasion against a deadline of his own making... All still with no apparent intent to honour his contractual obligation. I eventually just got fed up of his lies and inaction, and thought enough is enough... 'three strikes and you're out mate.'


Stable door, horse bolted...


The hitch he has finally sent is completely superfluous to my requirement, and I am £175 out of pocket for the (second-hand) hitch I felt I had no option other than to eventually buy.


Do you think I have a case to sue this moron for loss of bargain, claiming against him for the hitch I had to buy?


I have sunken quite a few hours of effort communicating with this chimp over four months whilst he has given me the run around, and am adamant that I am not going to end up out of pocket by the deal. I have dated records of every communication between us.


Thanks for listening.

mrs_sparrow

Not for loss of bargain no, but for the hitch yes, through the small claims court.

You have to do things properly though. Send him a letterby Special Delivery telling him he has 14 days to pay for the hitch that you had to buy. Include a COPY of the receipt. If you have his hitch, return it to him (at the same time, include the costs fo the courier onto the amount he has to repay you) and tell him it is no longer required.

Advise him in the letter that should he not pay within 14 days you will be going through the small claims court to get the money back. Point out that the court will note that he waited until after you had advised him that you was purchasing the hitch to send you one. you also need to advise him in the letter that he will be liable for paying all court costs associated with the claim.

keep the letter to the point, do not wind it out - simply say 'After purchasing x in Feb you noted that you would supply a hitch. After numerous phone calls and no hitch, after 4 months I advised you in writing I was purchasing my own hitch and you would be liable for costs. only after buying this hitch did you send me the hitch but by this time it was too late and I had purchased the hitch as advised. This has been returned to you as it is no longer required and you need to pay me £x for the hitch that you failed to supply. The caravan was unstable to use and it had to be in a roadworth condition for me to take on holiday. I fet gave you enough time to supply the hitch, you failed to do so in an acceptable amount of time. Please send payment within 14 days of receipt of this letter otherwise I will have no alternative to file a claim with the small claims court to recoup all of my costs of the hitch, please be aware that you will be liable for all court costs associated with this claim, plus interest.'

Words to that effect.

The date of his courier delivery proves that he waited til the day after you had bought one to send one.

Then if he has not paid you within 14 days file a claim with moneyclaim online. Give him a tital of one month to pay. He will have to repay all of your court costs and it costs £30-£60 to file (unless pricing has changed). It's easy. Hopefully he will bottle out and pay you before this time.

kazwookie

Why did you pay for the caravan in the first place without inspecting it throughly and checking the hitch was there??

Was the hitch listing in the eby listing, therefore was part of the deal, or did you just think it was part of the deal?

Why did you drive it away with out the hitch in the first place?

notanewuser

What's a "private dealer"?

(Hint - there's no such thing.)

campdave

What did your lawyer advise?

sadanorakman

kazwookie wrote: »

Why did you pay for the caravan in the first place without inspecting it throughly and checking the hitch was there??

Was the hitch listing in the eby listing, therefore was part of the deal, or did you just think it was part of the deal?

Why did you drive it away with out the hitch in the first place?

The hitch was bolted to the van, and visible in the photos of the listing. You don't advertise a car for sale, then take it's alloys off and replace them with steel wheels before the buyer turns up. This is however academic, as he wrote that he agreed to supply a hitch on the receipt he issued me with.

The caravan was listed as immaculate, one careful elderly-gentleman owner, who had kept it in dry storage, no expense spared in servicing it, no leaks or damp, new tyres etc...

On the run up to this, I had travelled to see so many second-hand vans that were advertised as completely dry, just to find they had either bad damp problems, or long-term leaks resulting in subsequent rot... I had invested dozens of hours, and a couple of hundred pounds in fuel driving all over the place. I was on the cusp of giving up looking.

I spent half an hour discussing this van on the phone with the guy before committing to buy it, as it was 125 miles away and I couldn't practically view it before purchase.

So the agreement was made. When I turned up to collect the van, it actually turned out to have two leaks, with some rot in one window frame and some other damage which he had conveniently not revealed on the phone either.

It was basically make or break... if I went away empty handed, then I would have stopped looking for a van all together, so he offered me a couple of hundred quid back to compensate for the damage if I took the van. So with a heavy heart, I agreed to the deal.

The stabilizing hitch had been there in the photos of the van in the listing, and I told him I would not be taking the van without him supplying a suitable hitch, so he wrote on the receipt that he would supply one, saying he should have one within about a fortnight.

With hindsight being 20-20, I should have simply reclaimed my payment, and just walked away, seeing as he seems to have been lying to me from the very moment his lips started moving!

Unfortunately though, I bought the van, and this is where I now stand.

sadanorakman

mrs_sparrow wrote: »

Not for loss of bargain no, but for the hitch yes, through the small claims court.

Excuse me for being ignorant mrs sparrow, but what am I missing here? I can just make a claim for the hitch? Surely it's the fact that he has not completed his contractual obligations to me that I am claiming, and the hitch is the result of that claim?


As per the rest of your message, thank you very much for your advice. I had written to him on the 18th of June clearly stating that I had just bought a replacement hitch due to his continued inaction, and including a copy of the paypal transaction, as that is all I had available to me, stating he had until the 18th of July to settle with me, or I would start a legal claim against him.

He received the letter on the 19th, called me on the 20th, but didn't dispatch a hitch until the 23rd, which arrived on the 25th. So it was 3 days after he rang me that he sent a hitch.

What would you say please about the classification of the claim?

mrs_sparrow

sadanorakman wrote: »

Excuse me for being ignorant mrs sparrow, but what am I missing here? I can just make a claim for the hitch? Surely it's the fact that he has not completed his contractual obligations to me that I am claiming, and the hitch is the result of that claim?


As per the rest of your message, thank you very much for your advice. I had written to him on the 18th of June clearly stating that I had just bought a replacement hitch due to his continued inaction, and including a copy of the paypal transaction, as that is all I had available to me, stating he had until the 18th of July to settle with me, or I would start a legal claim against him.

He received the letter on the 19th, called me on the 20th, but didn't dispatch a hitch until the 23rd, which arrived on the 25th. So it was 3 days after he rang me that he sent a hitch.

What would you say please about the classification of the claim?

I am not sure what bargain you think you lost because you took the van away on viewing it. However, one of the parts that you was told he would provide, he did not, and for this you are entitled to claim the money back for. You gave him ample time to set the situation right, he did not do this and so you have had a financial loss that the seller needs to put right.

You can certainly try and claim 'loss of bargain' but it will a) lead to a very lengthy court battle which he will be able to escalate to his own home town (125 miles away) and b) it will cost you money to instigate. Sure, you can claim it back at the end IF you win. Ordinarily, the court will not compensate you for anything more than your losses - which is the part that you had to supply yourself, plus court costs, plus interest since the day you paid the money out.

You inspected the van, as you say, you should have walked but you chose to walk away with the van having accepted there were issues with it and he knocked a few quid off.

Whether you choose to try and claim more and made life stressful and difficult for yourself is up to you in all honesty. People have claimed 'Loss of Bargain' court cases in the past when an offer they wanted to buy has not been available and the only other option was a more expensive alternative. You have the product, you saw it, inspected, paid the money and took it away at less than the price advertised. So you have not 'lost' any bargain. However, the seller (Dealer? Do you have a receipt with his business name on) promised to supply you with something that he did not do, and for this, you are entitled to replace yourself and claim the money back for.

However, if you are going through the courts it would be advisable to return his item for the small price it is going to cost, in case he carries it forward and the judge decided you have your item and so you will not be compensated.

Again, this has to be your choice.

Until it gets to the elevated stage there need be no lawyers - and this aside,I am not sure you would win these back anyhow, just court costs. It will be for the judge to decide.

Following on from this, there is no guarantee he will pay you the money, you may then have to escalate this further and go back to court. Should he then fail to pay you can pay £60 to appoint a court bailiff to collect the money you are owed.

How much money are we talking about here? How much did it cost you for all of this stress and worry?

mrs_sparrow

Just also to add onto this, the judge could - if he is being pedantic - say that you did not give the seller enough time to set the situation right after sending the letter. It should have given him 14 days at that time to get the items. I assume this means you have the home/business address.

You say you contacted him numerous times before sending the letter - was this by phone, email or letter?

The ultimate decision lies with the judge if it is escalated though. until that time, it is just stamped paperwork.

If you have cancelled a holiday (for example, a pitch was booked but you was unable to go) then you could claim for that. But you would need paperwork to prove you lost the money. You can't just add random stuff on and expect to get paid out for it. Well, you could, but the Judge will love that I am sure.

sadanorakman

[QUOTE=

How much money are we talking about here? How much did it cost you for all of this stress and worry?[/QUOTE]

Thanks Mrs Sparrow... I obviously had the completely wrong understanding of the term 'loss of bargain', which is why I was asking the very question on this forum. I had mistakenly thought that it would be the Hitch that I would be claiming loss of bargain over... basically the fact that I had to go and buy a hitch, because he had failed to supply one free of charge as originally agreed.

The caravan was two grand... not a pinch of money to some people, but a couple of year's hard saving for me, the most I could afford to spend, and resulting in hopefully five years of happy holidays for my family. He agreed to come down to £1800 on the collection day because of the obvious damage on the van that he had seen fit not to divulge to me. At the end of the day though, I didn't have his arm up his back... he was happy to sell the van for this amount, and I would argue that it was/is not worth a penny more.

The second-hand hitch has cost me £176, (or think of it as 10% of the value of the van) and it is just the £176 that I wish to claim back from him, plus any costs that I may incur in recovering that £176, for example the £25 or £35 claim fee. If he wants to take it to court, then I would also look to seek my travel expenses, and any lost earnings for that day in court.

It is not ultimately about the couple of hundred quid, even though once again, it is not a paltry sum to me... It is about a lying scumbag that has sought to ignore, lie, and mislead me not only from the very first conversation I had with him, but continuingly for a further four months after we agreed our contract.

It is downright fraud, and to me a matter of principle that I do not accept lightly people taking the P*** out of me.

With respect to not giving him enough time. I spoke with him on the 20th of May (this is already after several months of negotiations with him), and he promised to supply me a hitch within seven days of that conversation. I told him I was a reasonable man, and that I would actually give him until the end of may (31st) to supply it. Again during this conversation I discussed with him that if he failed to supply the hitch, then I would have to look at alternative options. The 31st came and went, and it was not until the 17th of June that I finally purchased a replacement. No I did not give any further warnings, because he had already received several. He hadn't even the decency to contact me when his deadline had expired, nor for a fortnight after that date, in fact until I worte to him telling him I'd bought a hitch.

Thank you again for your advice.

This morning I have contacted him, and offered to reach a compromise with him via the use of a mediator... he has turned me down flat.

I guess my next step is the money claim then!

pulliptears

The caravan was still perfectly useable without a stabilising hitch. It's not an integral part of the van and it still functions without it. You chose not to use it because of the lack of hitch and I think you are over complicating things with it.

You bought van advertised with hitch, didn't get hitch, bought your own and wish to claim back the costs. Anything else isn't really relevant.