Used car purchase going south - can I get my deposit back?
Discussion
Hi,
I recently committed to buying a used car through a dealer approved scheme. Unfortunately, since signing on the dotted line, problems have arisen and I'd appreciate a bit of advice.
The car I was interested in was 3.5 years old with a Northern Irish plate. I'm buying on the UK mainland. While there's no problem driving on a NI plate over here, I had read that it can affect resale, so it was something that put me off the car. When querying with the dealer, they stated that they had already applied for a mainland registration.
Having driven the car and liked it, I decided to buy and put down a £500 deposit with collection to take place when the registration had been updated. Since then queries with the DVLA have suggested that the dealer never applied for the change and the dealer themselves say the application must've been "lost". My problem is, I don't believe them and I have a bad feeling that if they're not being straight about this, there may be other issues they're keeping quiet about. They have said that I should take car as-is, apply for the registration change myself and they "might" cover the cost to change the insurance details if necessary.
If I decide to back out of the deal, where do I stand as far as getting my deposit back? While the plate issue may seem minor, there were some other nagging doubts about the way they tried to set up finance on the vehicle. There was an insistance on signing draft copies (marked as such) of the documentation to show I'd read it, which in hindsight is something I wish I'd refused to do. At the time I thought I was being overly cautious, but looking back I now have a general distrust of the dealer which has soured the whole deal.
Thoughts anybody?
Cheers,
M
I recently committed to buying a used car through a dealer approved scheme. Unfortunately, since signing on the dotted line, problems have arisen and I'd appreciate a bit of advice.
The car I was interested in was 3.5 years old with a Northern Irish plate. I'm buying on the UK mainland. While there's no problem driving on a NI plate over here, I had read that it can affect resale, so it was something that put me off the car. When querying with the dealer, they stated that they had already applied for a mainland registration.
Having driven the car and liked it, I decided to buy and put down a £500 deposit with collection to take place when the registration had been updated. Since then queries with the DVLA have suggested that the dealer never applied for the change and the dealer themselves say the application must've been "lost". My problem is, I don't believe them and I have a bad feeling that if they're not being straight about this, there may be other issues they're keeping quiet about. They have said that I should take car as-is, apply for the registration change myself and they "might" cover the cost to change the insurance details if necessary.
If I decide to back out of the deal, where do I stand as far as getting my deposit back? While the plate issue may seem minor, there were some other nagging doubts about the way they tried to set up finance on the vehicle. There was an insistance on signing draft copies (marked as such) of the documentation to show I'd read it, which in hindsight is something I wish I'd refused to do. At the time I thought I was being overly cautious, but looking back I now have a general distrust of the dealer which has soured the whole deal.
Thoughts anybody?
Cheers,
M
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