Sold car privately now being threatened with court

panicproject

Hi all,

I recently sold my car. Listed it on gumtree for £600, sold for £550. Car was 14 years old but had been regularly serviced etc, have kept all receipts for work I have had done etc.

Anyway, the buyer comes to view the car, she has her husband on the phone talking her through every thing to check and after 30 minutes or so we agree the sale.

I stated in the gumtree advert about the one issue I was aware of with the car. It was an error message that came up on the dash saying "anti pollution fault". This was discussed when the buyer came to look at the car as well.

Later the day (or the next, I can't remember) the buyers friend called me saying the buyer was in tears because she could not get the boot open and wanted a refund. I found this very strange. The boot was opened in front of her whilst she was viewing the car and now she was saying it was broken. I told her to try again in a bit. I also explained that I would not give a refund as the car is sold as seen as it was a private sale and it now legally belongs (I did the transfer on the DVLA site) to her so I can't just take it back and refund the money. I paid off my credit card with the money I got from selling the car.
Things went quiet afterwards and now today 2 weeks later I receive a voicemail stating "its within my best interests" to return her call to me as she is going to take "legal action" against me because I did not make her aware of other issues with the car.

She went on to state that the rear axle is bent and that there is a problem with the device that puts the spare wheel under the car.
I kept the spare in the boot as it was such a pain get it off in the rain one day and I just never bothered putting it back because of how tedious it was getting it off. I told her this on the day when she checked the car over and now she is saying that I was aware it was broken, which I wasn't.
She is also saying that I was aware of the axle problem and kept that from her too.
I was totally unaware of these issues. If I knew there was a problem with the axle I certainly would not have been transporting my 9 year old son up and down the motorway once a fortnight in that car.

I was honest in the description of the advert and helpful on the day of the sale answering all her questions. the car was sold with an MOT till April and as far as I am aware it was road legal.

Now I am being threatened with legal action.

Any advice on this upsetting matter would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

waamo

Caveat Emptor innit. This crops up regularly, people buying bangers and expecting a showroom service.

As long as your advert was honest then there is nothing they can do. For all you know they have damaged it themselves.

Block their number.

arcon5

They sound like idiots to the extend I doubt the axle is bent!! You don't complain about such trivial things like spare wheel bracket on a banger.

Respond telling them to feel free to take you to court where you'll defend the claim and that you will no longer be responding.

bobbymotors

Print off a copy of your ad in case they bother with court.

copy and paste ad, send to them and ask where the ad is wrong in any way, and that a £550 car needs only to start, run and go from a to b for a few months. Anything more than that is a bonus. Also explain that the car was £10,000 new and is now 5.5% of that.

Sadly the banger end of the market is the hardest: because that's all the money they've got, they want a new car for it.

bobbymotors

And as arcon has said, no more responding.

MobileSaver

arcon5 wrote: »

Respond telling them to feel free to take you to court where you'll defend the claim and that you will no longer be responding.

+1

They'd be laughed out of court. Ignore the chancers unless you receive a Letter Before Action or official court documents (in which case come back here for more advice.)

panicproject

thanks so much for the replies guys. It's as I thought then, although where I was not 100% I was a little concerned.
She was still texting me at gone midnight this morning which nearly got me calling the police.
I have sent one response stating it will be my only response and that if she continues to contact me asking for a refund I will report her to the police for harassment.
I will let you guys know if I hear anything else.
Thank you for the advice.
There were many other similar posts here that all said the same thing too.

bobbymotors

block them on your phone.

firefox1956

I had a similar thing happen........
Just block their number & forget about them.
Chancers !!