Distance Selling Sale - thoughts on this little matter?
Distance Selling Sale - thoughts on this little matter?
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Discussion

The Mad Jock

Original Poster:

37 posts

238 months

Here’s something I’ve had thrown at me by a friend and I really don’t know what to say.

I’ll caveat this by repeating its a friend who has gotten into this mess, not me, and further caveat by saying it’s exactly because of these kind of happenings that I got out of the trade many moons ago and never looked back!

Anyway. Said friend recently came into quite a sum of money and decided it was now or never to buy a very special and very expensive car that he has admired for some time. He visited a dealership with a couple of mates (I wasn’t involved) and saw a car of interest. On enquiring it turned out that a deposit had been taken so the car was not for sale. They poked around a while, saw nothing else and left details in case something similar should appear in the near future.

A couple of days later he gets a call to say the sale on the car he saw had fallen through, it was now available and did he want to buy it. This is someone who sometimes has trouble deciding where to cross a road, so I was a little shocked to find out next day that he had pressed on and given a sizeable deposit over the phone (debit card I believe).

I genuinely don’t know why there was such a long delay in having the car delivered, it was perhaps around 3 weeks, but when the car arrived on a delivery truck and after the truck departed it soon became apparent that the car was simply too big to fit in his garage. It could be driven in, with a tiny bit of space either side but no way of getting out of the car once in the garage. The terms of his insurance state garage essential so it was an immediate issue.

He called the garage next day, again I’m short on detail here as I wasn’t there, but it was agreed that they would come and collect the car and have it on a sale or return basis. A day or two later we talk and he’s asking me his rights under Distance Selling Rules and produces the paperwork he was given, invoices etc, including a form which has the box ticked to say that it was a Distance Sale.

Simple question really then, apart from the fact he’s been an idiot - does he have any recourse to return the car for a refund under Distance Selling Rules?

Thanks in advance.

the cueball

1,585 posts

73 months

14 days to return the vehicle for any reason for a FULL refund, must be in writing and usually at at your own cost.

I think that about covers it, unless I'm missing something...


davek_964

10,386 posts

193 months

the cueball said:
14 days to return the vehicle for any reason for a FULL refund, must be in writing and usually at at your own cost.

I think that about covers it, unless I'm missing something...
But he visited the dealer and viewed the car before being given the option to buy it.
That doesn't sound like a distance sale

sjc

15,188 posts

288 months

Get one of these and keep the car.

https://www.myparker.co.uk/

the cueball

1,585 posts

73 months

davek_964 said:
the cueball said:
14 days to return the vehicle for any reason for a FULL refund, must be in writing and usually at at your own cost.

I think that about covers it, unless I'm missing something...
But he visited the dealer and viewed the car before being given the option to buy it.
That doesn't sound like a distance sale
i have no doubt that is where the dealer will head... but in the OP:

The Mad Jock said:
. A day or two later we talk and he s asking me his rights under Distance Selling Rules and produces the paperwork he was given, invoices etc, including a form which has the box ticked to say that it was a Distance Sale.

The Mad Jock

Original Poster:

37 posts

238 months

Thanks for replies thus far. Yes he did visit the dealer but he wasn’t allowed to view the car as it was at that point sold.

I’ve told him he has 14 days but today is actually the 14th day since it arrived at his house - he’s is a right flap but I’ve drawn up a ‘letter of rejection’ type text best I can and sent it to him to rehash and forward, which he’s allegedly done.

We’ll see what happens, sometimes it’s not easy to sympathise but he’s put himself in a right mess...

samoht

6,706 posts

164 months

Tight Single Garage Parking Solution
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

ADJimbo

711 posts

204 months

If it came down to litigation, your friend would struggle to convince someone that this was a Distance Sale as your friend physically visited the site and physically looked at the vehicle. The fact he has a ticked handover sheet demonstrating it’s a Distance Sale would be soon disregarded as an administrative error.

However, fortune favours the brave…

It’s an ambitious argument but one that would be worth running nevertheless - your friend attended site to properly inspect the vehicle (with the objective of measuring the vehicle to establish its suitability for his garage accommodation ) but upon being informed that the vehicle had been reserved and/or sold that he was therefore prevented from undertaking these checks to a meaningful conclusion.

Therefore, it could be advanced that it does formulate a Distance Sale as no further suitability checks could be undertaken and therefore his visit to site is irrelevant and it did in fact become a Distance Sale.

The above would be worth a roll of the dice to see where the discussion would end-up. You’d probably not get it away but it’d have some merit in advancing it.

Sir Bagalot

6,823 posts

199 months

Tuesday
quotequote all
When I was growing up we had a neighbour who had a similar problem. He simply pushed his car into his garage and when needed just pulled it out

Richard-390a0

3,051 posts

109 months

Tuesday
quotequote all
I wouldn't even go car shopping without first checking the vehicle I favoured will actually fit within my garage. Similarly I'm currently looking to change the combi boiler in my house so I've checked the dimensions of the options available to make sure they'll fit in the current location.

MrCarrot

7 posts

Tuesday
quotequote all
Richard-390a0 said:
I wouldn't even go car shopping without first checking the vehicle I favoured will actually fit within my garage. Similarly I'm currently looking to change the combi boiler in my house so I've checked the dimensions of the options available to make sure they'll fit in the current location.
As someone who is in the process of buying a new car I just panicked a bit when I read your post. Then I remembered there is literally a 0.001% chance I would ever keep my car in the garage due to all of the junk in there.