Dealership Refusing to give me my deposit

macman

A deposit is to confirm a contract-it's not an 'option to purchase'.
Why did you pay a deposit unless you were 100% sure you wanted to proceed?

poppasmurf_bewdley

Macman is correct.

You pay a deposit to confirm that you wish to proceed with a sale.

To pay a deposit over the phone for something you haven't seen, or without understanding what the terms and conditions are, is folly.

The garage is legally entitled to keep your deposit, and also to charge you for any expenses they incur in re-selling the vehicle.

BJV

Did you pay the deposit face to face or via a telephone its just that the levels of protection are different if you paid and signed on trade premises. ?

bod1467

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

The garage is legally entitled to keep your deposit, and also to charge you for any expenses they incur in re-selling the vehicle.

No they're not. They're entitled to retain from the deposit any provable losses, or a genuine pre-estimate of loss, flowing from the breach of contract.

BeenThroughItAll

walkerking89 wrote: »

I think @poppasmurf_bewdley is right.
You have need to check the T/c before applying for any Service. try to convince them may be they return some part of your Deposit.

Hmm, no spam today?

poppasmurf_bewdley

bod1467 wrote: »

No they're not. They're entitled to retain from the deposit any provable losses, or a genuine pre-estimate of loss, flowing from the breach of contract.

Which is what I said.

Taking as an example: Car sale price £5000. Profit (estimate) £500. Deposit placed £100. Cancel deal. Result: Dealer retains deposit and claims a further £400 from customer who cancelled for loss of profit.

bod1467

Nope. Doesn't work like that (unless they don't then sell the vehicle) - the MOST they could claim would be loss of profit from the original deal LESS the profit they make when they do sell it.

If they make MORE profit on the new sale, should they return the difference to the original buyer?

That's why I said PROVABLE losses.

poppasmurf_bewdley

It doesn't work that way.

If the car concerned is then sold to another punter, how do you prove that punter wouldn't have bought another car if the original one had not been available? Any dealer would say that the new punter came into the showroom looking for a large/medium/small, petrol/diesel, £1k/£2k/£3k/£5k/£10k car and could easily have bought any one of a number of cars available. Therefore, the dealer would have made two sales instead of just one.

Any court would look at the situation as it is, not as it could have been. A judge can only look at quantifiable losses, which is what a dealer would have made if the sale had gone through. That is the amount a dealer would sue for.

agrinnall

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

Any court would look at the situation as it is, not as it could have been. A judge can only look at quantifiable losses, which is what a dealer would have made if the sale had gone through. That is the amount a dealer would sue for.

I don't agree, the dealer would have to show that they had minimised their losses, in this case by selling the car to someone else, at which point bod's scenario comes into play. A judge would throw out a claim where that attempt to minimise losses hadn't been made.

bod1467

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

It doesn't work that way.

If the car concerned is then sold to another punter, how do you prove that punter wouldn't have bought another car if the original one had not been available? Any dealer would say that the new punter came into the showroom looking for a large/medium/small, petrol/diesel, £1k/£2k/£3k/£5k/£10k car and could easily have bought any one of a number of cars available. Therefore, the dealer would have made two sales instead of just one.

Any court would look at the situation as it is, not as it could have been. A judge can only look at quantifiable losses, which is what a dealer would have made if the sale had gone through. That is the amount a dealer would sue for.

You have a strange interpretation of contract law. I think most of the rest of us live in the real world.

Again, the word is PROVABLE. A dealer could in no way prove that they could have made two sales. Not in a million years. What a dealer says and/or believes, and what is reality, are very different things