Returning a Rent To Buy Vehicle

fr33zy

I signed for a 5 year rent to buy contract for a private hire vehicle from a company that specialises in renting vehicles for private hire. The cars are usually brand new but this particular one had a few hundred miles on the clock, so almost new.

I have had the car for a few months, paid a 3k deposit and weekly ongoing rental.

It turns out the vehicle was in a small accident before I collected it, which the company failed to disclose. It was not recorded on insurance database but given this information, I feel misled and I do not want to keep a car, which is very expensive, given the accident history.

What are my legal rights to return the car, get my deposit back and should I ask for additional compensation?

Wonka_2

Presumably a business rather than consumer ‘purchase’ so limited ‘consumer’ rights 

But how do you know about the accident and, assuming it’s unrecorded, what actual impact does it have on your ownership e.g poor repair

fr33zy

Its a consumer purchase. The accident was confirmed by Mercedes who inspected the car for something else and saw the damage repair and the bodged up respray which does not colour match the rest of the car and is a different colour on the inside of the panel.

Aylesbury_Duck

fr33zy said:

Its a consumer purchase. The accident was confirmed by Mercedes who inspected the car for something else and saw the damage repair and the bodged up respray which does not colour match the rest of the car and is a different colour on the inside of the panel.

How can it have been a consumer purchase when you described it as a private hire vehicle?  It doesn't matter whether you as an individual or you as a business paid for it, if you bought it for private hire use, it's a business purchase.  That will affect what legal rights you have.

It will come down to the business contract and its terms.  Same for compensation, although as with a consumer purchase, you'll have to quantity your loss.

LightFlare

I would hazard a guess that most new cars have had some sort of cosmetic repair.

presumably it wasn’t bad enough that you spotted it when taking delivery of the vehicle

What is the actual nature of the repair ?

As above - this doesn’t appear to be a consumer purchase (as per the legal definition)

pinkshoes

fr33zy said:

I signed for a 5 year rent to buy contract for a private hire vehicle from a company that specialises in renting vehicles for private hire. The cars are usually brand new but this particular one had a few hundred miles on the clock, so almost new.

I have had the car for a few months, paid a 3k deposit and weekly ongoing rental.

It turns out the vehicle was in a small accident before I collected it, which the company failed to disclose. It was not recorded on insurance database but given this information, I feel misled and I do not want to keep a car, which is very expensive, given the accident history.

What are my legal rights to return the car, get my deposit back and should I ask for additional compensation?

Assuming as per the bit in bold you are using this vehicle as a taxi, then your legal rights are as per the business contract you signed when purchasing. (this is a business transaction, not a consumer one if you bought the vehicle to use as a taxi).

You will need to check the contract carefully.

The few hundred miles bit would have had me asking questions on WHY it had been returned. Likely due to the accident. Did you ask about the cars history and who had used it before and why it was available again? Did you ask if it had been in any accidents? 

Compensation can be claimed if you have financial losses e.g. if the accident damage meant that the car had to be sent for repair and you were unable to use it as a taxi and therefore lost money. Again, this makes it a business contract and not a consumer one. 

sheramber

It could have been damaged during delivery or while in the garage , before  being registered.
Were there any previous owners.?

Was it a pre registered car?

Arunmor

One other question is what deal did you get on the taxi versus a brand new one?

Alderbank

In a post to a different section of MSE forum the OP said

I'm a self-employed freelance chauffeur.  I currently rent my vehicle and have been doing so for a couple of years.  I would now like to buy my own vehicle, the cost of which is around £40,000 approved used from Mercedes...

Is that the same rent-to-buy Mercedes private hire vehicle which is the subject of this post?  If so it will be difficult to justify the OP's claim that this is a consumer purchase.

born_again

What kind of damage are we talking about here?

DullGreyGuy

fr33zy said:

It turns out the vehicle was in a small accident before I collected it, which the company failed to disclose. It was not recorded on insurance database but given this information, I feel misled and I do not want to keep a car, which is very expensive, given the accident history.

What are my legal rights to return the car, get my deposit back and should I ask for additional compensation?

Depending on how they acquired the vehicle they may not even know about the minor accident

Subject to which "insurance database" you are talking about, not all insurers are registered to update them, not all accidents are dealt with by insurers. 

Never been convinced by the statistic but many claim that the a significant proportion of brand new vehicles sustain minor damage that requires patching up before handover. If the car is nearly new rather than brand new then that inevitably will increase the chances