Distance Sale?

[Housebound]

Bought vehicle from a classics dealer in late December paid in full via bank transfer. All done through WhatsApp, organised to be collected via covered trailer and delivered to me. Did not visit the premises at all, all I have is a used car receipt which has the boxes ticked "Sold as seen" and "Paid in full" do not have a single piece of paperwork regarding Distance Selling Regulations

Do I have upto 12 months to hand this car back, what costs can the dealer take away from my refund of payment for the car?

[Manxman]

"Distance contracts" are covered by The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (legislation.gov.uk). See regulation 5 for the definition of a "distance contract".

A consumer - see reg 5 again for definition of a "consumer" - is entitled to cancel a distance contract for up to 14 days after delivery of the goods.

If the seller does not provide to the consumer the information required by paragraph (l) of Schedule 2 of the Regulations, then (1) the cancellation period is extended as provided for in regulation 31, and (2) the seller cannot recover from the consumer any amount to reflect dimunition in value of the goods caused by the consumer's "excessive handling" of the goods - see reg 34(11).

Is this a high value item and are you thinking of running this argument? I suspect it hasn't been tested for high value items in a court yet. It might be a risky strategy...

Have you asked CAB?

[Housebound]

It's a car, which I paid £37K for, as mentioned above no terms and conditions or rights to cancel given at time of contract. The vehicle has at 7 weeks had the clutch replaced. Surely legislation as I've not been given my cancellation rights gives me 12 months to hand it back?

[atticus]

Why does anyone part with £37,000 in the circumstances described?

Why does the OP want to return this car? If something is wrong with it, he has yet to say.

[Manxman]

[1] Why does anyone part with £37,000 in the circumstances described?

[2] Why does the OP want to return this car? If something is wrong with it, he has yet to say.

[1] Quite

[2] I presume because the clutch has gone and - rather than argue that point with the dealer - the OP wants to try to exercise his statutory right to cancel a distance contract within the extended cancellation window. Extended because the dealer has not supplied the information required by the regs informing the OP of their right to cancel

[Manxman]

It's a car, which I paid £37K for, as mentioned above no terms and conditions or rights to cancel given at time of contract. The vehicle has at 7 weeks had the clutch replaced. Surely legislation as I've not been given my cancellation rights gives me 12 months to hand it back?

As I said in my earlier post, if this qualifies as a distance contract, and if you are a consumer, and if the dealer did not provide to you the information required by paragraph (l) of Schedule 2 to the Regulations explaining to you your right to cancel a distance contract, then the cancellation period is extended by up to 12 months (or, if earlier, up to 14 days after the dealer does actually provide the required information to you.)

I don't know all the details of this transaction as well as you do, so you're in a better position than I am to judge if the above does or does not apply.

Usually with cancellation of a distance contract the trader is entitled to deduct from any refund an amount to reflect any diminution in value of the goods resulting from "... handling of the goods by the consumer beyond what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods...".

However, where the trader has not supplied to the consumer the information about the right to cancel required by paragraph (l) of Schedule 2, the trader is not allowed to make any deduction for loss of value. But how this would apply in the case of a £37000 purchase I'm not sure. How many miles have you done?

I'm not a lawyer but I suspect your sort of distance contract is not quite what the regulations were intended to cover, so it might be a somewhat risky strategy to argue that the extended cancellation window applies and that you are entitled to full refund.

I'd ask CAB if I were you. I'm pretty certain they've had experience of precisely this issue - ie whether the extended cancellation window and no deduction from refund applies to car distance sales.

What happened when you tried to cancel a car distance contract back in 2021?

[Edit 1: Personally, as you seem to be envisioning claiming a full refund of £37K, I think I'd advise you to get paid for professional legal advice. I'd expect the car dealer to put up a fight over that much money...]

[Edit 2: I presume you don't want to argue the toss with the dealer whether the car is faulty and you want to cancel?]

[Housebound]

Il explain, the car was a very low mileage 7 year old performance variant. 1900 miles when I received it by covered trailer organised by myself. 1 week after ownership I realised that the yearly service had not been carried out before sale so that was a little annoying. Then 6/7 weeks and driving rough 900 miles the clutch went on a busy dual carriageway. My partner who is heavily pregnant does not want to travel anymore in the car after that incident. And tbh after the clutch I am little paranoid using it because according to manufacturer it's a common issue. Its basically made me fall out of love with it hence why I'm wanting to use Distance Selling Regs instead of Consumer Rights. The clutch was repaired and paid for by the dealer.

[Housebound]

My 2021 thread all my money was returned to me and the dealership collected the car. But that dealership was part of Motor Ombudsman and they advised the dealer of my rights

[des8]

Link to your previous thread: https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...r-issues/page3

Post 38 indicates the motor Ombudsman concurs that the distance selling regulations apply to motor vehicles

A similar thread: https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...-needed-please

and I'm pretty sure there was a court case mentioned in LB where the judge agreed

[atticus]

I missed the thing about the clutch. But it has been repaired.

The OP is going to have to set out in full detail the entire sequence of events and communications that led him to purchase this vehicle via WhatsApp.

[Housebound]

Was originally purchasing a Red Edition Focus RS from another dealer mid December. 1 day before delivery on a Sunday they contacted me to say upon final inspection the bumper was in a not so good state for a 200 mile car and that they didn't feel comfortable going ahead with the sale so they refunded my money. So this left me car less as I had sold my vehicle on the Friday in preparation on this Red one arriving Monday-Tuesday. I was kinda in a panic now not having a car and couldn't find a Red Edition for the spec and low mileage I wanted, so scouring Facebook, Autotrader etc I came across the one I own now a White Focus RS with 1900 miles on, contacted the dealer for some information on the car and after he gave that information I just said I'd take and paid a deposit, all of this communication through WhatsApp, organised my own covered transport to collect the vehicle which was delivered to me on the Tuesday. Then what happened above has got me to this stage of submitting a cancellation letter under Distance Selling as I never visited the premises and wasn't given any terms and conditions or contract information on my rights to cancel

[atticus]

Thank you. I asked for that detail as we need to examine the full circumstances very carefully to see whether this sale comes within the 2013 regulations.

The following definition is in regulation 5:

"distance contract" means a contract concluded between a trader and a consumer under an organised distance sales or service-provision scheme without the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer, with the exclusive use of one or more means of distance communication up to and including the time at which the contract is concluded;

Go through it carefully. You need to be able to tick each and every box. At present I am not sure that you can show that this transaction was arranged "under an organised distance sales or service-provision scheme".

[Housebound]

The trader is selling cars at distance all the time, surely that would fall into it. Motor Ombudsman just lays it out in simple terms, if you don't visit the premises it's a distance sale

[des8]

FCA guidance on distance selling: https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/hand.../3/Annex1.html

[Housebound]

So basically trader can say they don't run the scheme and that's it?