Legal advise on selling my car privatley

bab85

I sold my car last week privatley with one fault that i told the buyer about.

This morning he text me and said that the water pump was destroyed (advice from his local garage) and asked if i was willing to pay half of the costs. I told him that i was not aware of the fault and dont even know what a water pump looks like.

He has now told me that he will be taking me to court over it. Where do i stand?
HELP PLEASE!!!!!

straighttalker

It's a private sale so buyer beware. It's down to him to check he's happy with everything before he buys the car. He has no chance to succeed if he ever did issue court proceedings!

He's trying to frighten you into giving him money for the repairs. Don't do it. You owe the guy nothing.

Retrogamer

This is a common scam people use now to try and get big discounts on privately purchased cars. They make up false faults and try and get partial refunds on them.

Tell them to jog on or just ignore them. Either way, you're not at risk unless you lied about the vehicles condition.

Nodding_Donkey

What he said.

Tell him to FRO

Babbawah

IME water pumps give very little notice of when they are about to expire, when they do go it is quite easy to spot the symptoms.

Any trained & qualified mechanic will confirm that the average owner of a car will not be aware that the water pump is about to go, yet they should be aware once it has either started to go or catastrophically failed.

If you've sold a car that showed no symptoms of water pump failure then you have nothing to fear. IIWM, I would invite the punter to sue me.

Besides, there are very few cars out there where the water pump is not easily & cheaply replaced. It is usually well within the average price drop between advertised & final price.

Ebe_Scrooge

Any private sale is "sold as seen". As long as you didn't deliberately lie in the advert then you have nothing to fear. This guy is just trying it on. You say you notified him of one known fault - I'm assuming this wasn't the water pump ? As previous posters have said, water pumps go, usually with little warning. Not your problem.

He could try taking you to court if he wants - his loss. Just ignore him. Unless he becomes threatening, in which case you simply pass all correspondence, texts, whatever, over to the police.

OK, perhaps don't ignore him. Send a polite reply, stating that you sold the car in good faith, you pointed out the known fault, other than that the car was fine as far as you were aware. That's all a "layman" could be expected to do, you have no other responsibilities. If he was that worried, he could have paid for a professional inspection.

He's just trying to bully you, end of.

mcpitman

Yup, sold as seen, text him back politley and state as such, then ignore all future contact unless aggressive or threatening, then send to police.

forgotmyname

Seems to be a common thing these days. Buyers pay too much and later regret it or find a better deal elsewhere.
Or had already planned on asking for money back with false claims even if the car is OK.

He gave you the money you gave them the keys and its theirs. Warts and all.

almillar

If you answered all his questions honestly, that's your only legal obligation as a private seller.