Deposit paid in a car but Garage sell it to someone else...

[iDrive]

Hi

Can anyone point me in the direction of where I should be looking.

(Used) Car ordered via dealers on-line website, deposit paid.

Car removed from website.

Dealer makes contact to apologise - Car has been sold to another buyer.

Morally, you'd hope they'd seek to do right by the customer (they are a large Dealership Group and will have similar in stock, albeit at higher prices...), but what is the correct legal position?

Thanks!

[stinkyspanner]

I don't think there is one, they just give you back your deposit

[NS66]

It happens - advertised on multiple platforms I guess - and some walks in and beats you to it.
nothing you can do.

[Pinkie15]

Probably not a lot

Might depend on time difference between you paying deposit & them selling it.

If there’s a reasonable gap between, and it costs you more to buy a (very) similar car you might be able to sue them for the difference in price.

But you’d need to know that time difference and be prepared to go to court. You might well need to demonstrate that they should have known the car had been bought by you online.

How much effort/how far do you want to pursue it ??

[ConnectionError]

It happens, get your deposit back and move on.

There will be something on the website to cover this issue.

I suspect it is very unlikely that they will offer you another similar car and discount it to make you happy.

[J1990]

There's likely smallprint somewhere that states that the vehicle is advertised elsewhere.
It sounds like you were unfortunate but it's not as if you're out of pocket, the refund will be returned and you continue your search.

[AJB88]

Get your deposit back and move on.

[LosingGrip]

Could use it in your favour to get a bit of discount off another one at their branch.

[AlexRS2782]

I had similar late last year. Browsing AutoTrader and spotted a 595 Comp at an Abarth dealer. Went direct to the dealer website for more info and it was still listed as available, so paid a holding deposit that night directly via their website. Got a call about 10am the following day from the dealer - thought it was to arrange a time to pop over / have a look, etc - but instead they'd called to say sorry, but the car had been reserved late in the afternoon (on the same day i'd paid the deposit) and that the person was coming back to pay / collect later that afternoon. Due to the time the deposit had been taken at the dealer, admin hadn't had a chance to pull the car from the website and were doing it that morning.

Fair enough, nothing lost and deposit was returned 5 minutes after the phone call.

[popegregory]

Did I dream about a thread on here where someone was sued for, and I believe a term used was “loss of bargain”, or was it actually a thing? Posted by someone who sold a car to someone after promising it to someone else I seem to recall.

[Sheepshanks]

Hmm...if you'd tried to cancel would the dealer have kept your deposit?

A contract is in place, especially as money has changed hands (although that isn't critical).

You could find the same the car and if it cost more then ask the dealer to pay the difference, suing them if necssary for Loss of Bargain. In practice it's probably a waste of time., especially as it'd probably be quite tricky to find a near-enough identical car.


(This happened to a colleague on a new BMW that was in stock. At first they basically said "hard luck, here's your deposit back" but after they were reminded about the contract, they did look after him).

[Mo28]

Similar happened to my mum albeit it was back in 2007. She paid for a Mercedes A class (the tall boxy one) at a main dealers and was meant to collect it a couple of days whilst they cleaned it up and put an mot on it. A day later the salesman realised that the car had already been sold to someone else earlier in the day. They gave her a Smart fortwo for 5-6 months whilst they tried looking for a similar car, in the end they just refunded her the money as they couldn't find one in budget.

[MitchT]

popegregory said:

Did I dream about a thread on here where someone was sued for, and I believe a term used was “loss of bargain”, or was it actually a thing? Posted by someone who sold a car to someone after promising it to someone else I seem to recall.

Yes, I was about to post about that. Essentially, if the garage has sold the car to someone else for more, and it costs you more than the price you'd agreed to source an equivalent car, then you can sue for "loss of bargain", the loss being the difference. I thought the whole concept was a joke but a PHer, in a fairly recent thread, had to cough up to the claimant after selling his car to someone else for more than he'd already agreed with the claimant.

[The Rotrex Kid]

MitchT said:

popegregory said:

Did I dream about a thread on here where someone was sued for, and I believe a term used was “loss of bargain”, or was it actually a thing? Posted by someone who sold a car to someone after promising it to someone else I seem to recall.

Yes, I was about to post about that. Essentially, if the garage has sold the car to someone else for more, and it costs you more than the price you'd agreed to source an equivalent car, then you can sue for "loss of bargain", the loss being the difference. I thought the whole concept was a joke but a PHer, in a fairly recent thread, had to cough up to the claimant after selling his car to someone else for more than he'd already agreed with the claimant.

It did happen, but in that case, they had agreed a price, then the seller got offered more, offered to sell to the first buyer at the higher price which was refused, seller sold to the second buyer and first buyer took him to court!!

In this case, best just to take your deposit back and move on.

[kestral]

iDrive said:

Hi

Can anyone point me in the direction of where I should be looking.

(Used) Car ordered via dealers on-line website, deposit paid.

Car removed from website.

Dealer makes contact to apologise - Car has been sold to another buyer.

Morally, you'd hope they'd seek to do right by the customer (they are a large Dealership Group and will have similar in stock, albeit at higher prices...), but what is the correct legal position?

Thanks!

Was the car sold to another person before you put the deposit down or after?

What were the terms of the deposit?

If the car was sold after you put the deposit down then you can find another car in a similar condition buy it and sue for any loss incured due to the breach of contract on the original sale.

[BertBert]

kestral said:

Was the car sold to another person before you put the deposit down or after?

What were the terms of the deposit?

If the car was sold after you put the deposit down then you can find another car in a similar condition buy it and sue for any loss incured due to the breach of contract on the original sale.

And exactly what difference does the timing make to the contract?

[Vasco]

I wouldn't buy a vehicle online. Too important to not justify a visit to view and agree terms.

[poo at Paul's]

iDrive said:

Hi

Can anyone point me in the direction of where I should be looking.

(Used) Car ordered via dealers on-line website, deposit paid.

Car removed from website.

Dealer makes contact to apologise - Car has been sold to another buyer.

Morally, you'd hope they'd seek to do right by the customer (they are a large Dealership Group and will have similar in stock, albeit at higher prices...), but what is the correct legal position?

Thanks!

I think if it is deemed you have a contract (need to check ts and cs of site in respect of your deposit etc), but IF there is a contract, you can potentially sue them for "loss of bargain". Effectively ask them to find you a similar car for same money, or you will find a similar car and sue them for the price difference between what you agreed to buy their's for, and what it costs you to buy another. The issue you have is that (maybe) you did not see the car in the flesh, they may argue what you end up with is "better" than the one you bought from them. But in this day of internet adverts and photos etc, it may not be insurmountable.

Edited by poo at Paul's on Tuesday 14th December 22:53

[gazza285]

OP, did you ring beforehand to see if the car was still available?

I was recently after a new vehicle, a good half of the ones I found online and enquired about were no longer available, it made the already tedious task more frustrating.

[ellingtj]

If it was not a particularly rare car then I'd just move on, but here is some bedtime reading for you: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.casemine.com/ju...