Does a dealer have to disclose CAT status?

[Ekona]

Really quick one chaps, and pretty much as per the title I guess. When buying a used car from a bone-fide dealer, do they have to disclose whether it's Cat D or C? Or is everything put onto the buyer, as if it was a private sale?

Thanks

[bigee]

It used to be the case (not sure if still is..) that they dont have to tell you, but,if you ask they have to.
Im sure a definitive answer will arrive in a mo.

[POORCARDEALER]

Dealer needs to disclose the fact

[a4cabrio]

If you ask a question they have to give you an honest answer, if you don't ask a specific question then they don't have to tell you.

That's how I thought it went.

[POORCARDEALER]

a4cabrio said:

If you ask a question they have to give you an honest answer, if you don't ask a specific question then they don't have to tell you.

That's how I thought it went.

Dealer has to disclose anything that may effect your buying decison

[Butter Face]

POORCARDEALER said:

Dealer needs to disclose the fact

This.

Beware the nefarious Type just writing 'VCAR'. Annoys me that people still try and pull this!

[sonnenschein3000]

They need to say it in the advert or something. Its usually hidden in a load of other text so you might miss it.

[Ste1987]

Autotrader lets you report a listing if it's got a CAT status, so I'm assuming not mentioning it is a big no-no

[300bhp/ton]

Ekona said:

Really quick one chaps, and pretty much as per the title I guess. When buying a used car from a bone-fide dealer, do they have to disclose whether it's Cat D or C? Or is everything put onto the buyer, as if it was a private sale?

Thanks

Yes if they know about it. Of course it is possible they don't know, depends on the dealer in question and how they came by the car in the first place. Although it would be unusual.

Small one man band traders may well not know a vehicle has been an insurance write off.

At the end of the day, lying by omission is still misleading with the aim of deception.

[Jurassic pork]

Autotrader now flags categorised cars, however, it's not a flawless system and can be gotten round easily enough.

[rgw2012]

I think any advertisement for a vehicle that is CAT D/C whether private or trade had to disclose the fact upfront regardless of any enquiry to that effect.

[Ekona]

Thank you guys, that was my understanding as well. Is there any legislation or guidelines or anything that states this? I'm struggling to find the info anywhere, but it must exist.

[catman]

I thought that a Dealer had to disclose whether asked or not, but a private seller only had to disclose if asked.

Tim

[rgw2012]

This is an extract from the Autotrader website so I expect they know what they are talking about (says the same for Cat C as well)

Should the person who sold me the vehicle have said it is in Cat D?
If you bought the vehicle from a dealer then they should have told you its insurance status. You may be able to make a claim against them.
Private sellers do not have to tell you about the Cat D status. If you ask, they must tell you of any problems they know about — but maybe they didn't know either.

Here's the link:- http://www.autotrader.co.uk/safety_and_security_ce...

[Ekona]

Thanks, that link's helpful, much appreciated.

The reason I'm asking is that a friend of mine (yeah yeah, I know!) bought a BMW from a dealer and upon trying to trade it in for another car somewhere else, has discovered that the vehicle has a Cat marker on it which was never disclosed at purchase time. We're now trying to find out exactly if a dealer has an obligation to tell the purchaser, so finding the text to back that up would be ideal.

Maybe worth speaking to the CAB or Trading Standards do we think?

[herewego]

Is this insurance status recorded somewhere that we can look up? Presumably it would show up on any kind of "Vehicle History Check", AA, RAC, HPI etc?

[Ekona]

I believe that's exactly where it was shown. The dealer is arguing that the check he did didn't show it up, which it may well not have done, however that's his issue to take up with whoever does his checks rather than the fault of the guy who bought the car.

Numerous quality HPI vehicle checks have confirmed the Cat status is genuine.

[shovelheadrob]

Has the car had a private plate? A friend of mine had a private plate which at some point had been on a vehicle which got written off, when he went to a dealer to px his vehicle, it showed up as CAT C, it transpired that the details had stayed with the reg no rather than the vehicle that was damaged. DVLA error I believe.

[Ramona]

A car that I was selling recently suddenly showed up as CAT C on a HPI check. After a few phone calls, it transpired that the insurance company involved had listed it against the wrong vehicle (partly due to a registration number change). Once they rectified this, the HPI check went clear.

It's also possible in the OP's case that the car had not yet been registered as CAT D at the time that the BMW dealer sold it, and only went onto the register at a later date.