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No sooner has the new Consumer Rights Act become law than we are already seeing lawyers disagreeing with each other. Let’s take the example of the used car dealer who sells a car that turns out to be faulty and is returned by the customer. One lawyer suggests ‘The durability of a vehicle is down to the manufacturer in the design and use of quality materials and, as such, a second hand dealership does not have control over these issues.’ Idiots!

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They are advising dealers to try to avoid their responsibility to their customers by suggesting that if the car has a fault when sold, that is a manufacturing fault, that the dealer isn’t responsible. As another lawyer pointed out, whilst this may be true the second hand dealer could be liable for any issues as the purchasers contract is with the dealer not the manufacturer. Could be?? That should read definitely liable. No question!

If the dealer wants to offset the cost by suing the manufacturer that is up to him but the customer has a right to expect the car to have no faults other than any that have been pointed out prior to the sale. Next issue was over Fit for Purpose. One lawyer suggested that if an electrician can carry all of his tools in a briefcase, a sports car with a small boot would be fit for that particular purpose.

That might be fine but to be fair to the dealer he needs to be told the purpose for which the car is being bought. You can’t buy a 1.0 litre city car then take it back because it wouldn’t tow your 8 berth caravan unless you told the car dealer that this was what you wanted to do with the car and he told you it would do that no problem.

But it gets worse because another lawyer, trying to be a bit of a smart arse said that if an electrician or tradesperson is using the vehicle for business, then they are probably not a consumer and so the act would not apply in this case.

Well Mr Smartarse lawyer you are right, a business user is not covered by the new Consumer Rights Act but as long as he isn’t a limited company or large partnership he is still covered by the Sale of Goods Act and the car must still be fit for purpose and if it isn’t you can still get your money back. Good grief – and I’m not a lawyer! Lawyer 1 then goes on to say the following to dealers when it comes to remedies:

1. Short term right to reject (up to 30 days from the point of sale)
2. The right to repair or replacement (for 6 months following the point of sale)
3. The right to a price reduction

Lawyer 2 points out that the right to repair does not end at 6 months. The statute of limitations gives the consumer 6 years – you may not have known that! Point c should read ‘the right to a price reduction or final right to reject’.

Regarding the issue of deductions for usage. The first lawyer states the following:

“The question here is how dealerships would assess this deduction. The obvious place to start would be the price that they would need to pay for a similar vehicle if they purchased it for stock on the day of the rejection, which could of course be significant and would need to be explained to the vehicle owner.”

That is a disgrace because the instructions within the act on this matter are very clear and quite contrary to this advice that suggests that usage should be based on the price of the vehicle when bought at its retail price less the trade value of a replacement vehicle. The instructions state:

Note that the deduction must be calculated based on the use that the consumer has had from the goods, and not the second-hand value of the goods. 

Couldn’t be much clearer could it you idiots. But the point here is that if the lawyers advising the car dealers can’t agree amongst themselves and get it right what chance do consumers have? By Graham Hill