Good luck with getting an OPC to give additional warranties and guarantees!!! They will undoubtedly tell you where to go. If you refuse the car you are then in breach of contract for unreasonably refusing delivery. They will sell the car on for more money and you can say goodbye to at least your deposit.
Where are you getting this “breach of contract” stuff from? The law doesn’t work that way and particularly not in the UK
You sign an order form when you order a car and pay the deposit. I think the terms and conditions within that agreement constitute a contract which are legally binding.
Yes you are correct they do, BUT it’s far more nuanced than that. There are many other conditions that need to be met by both parties and other elements of various parliamentary acts and laws that will supersede a simple contract, depending on the circumstances.
In short if you pay for goods that are not fit for purpose or not as advertised, the law is on your side. Executing remedial action is the tricky part, not the lack of your right to do it if that makes sense.
We can see from the OP’s original post, if it’s wrong and they can’t correct it, they need to mitigate - in this case he got his money back.
Thought it might be helpful (as it's my day job) to give a quick summary of the contract and law more generally on these issues as I've seen some interesting interpretations over the few months I've been on the forum! Of course, at any point the OPC can take non-contractual requests into account and the standard contractual framework can thus be varied, but the letter of the law is as follows:
1. You enter into the contract to purchase the vehicle when you pay the £3,000 deposit and choose your initial specification. You are legally obliged to purchase the vehicle at that stage, unless one of the exceptions in the contract applies.
2. The most relevant of those exceptions is usually that the contract allows for cancellation and refund of the deposit prior to being advised of an estimated delivery date that is based on the factory build date.
3. The locking down of the spec is not a process that is specified anywhere in the contract and it is not only at that point that a contract comes into existence.
4. If you change your spec at or prior to spec lockdown, you are, from a strict legal perspective, entering into a new contract.
5. The contract requires you to take delivery of the vehicle once it is made available for collection.
6. If upon handover you find faults with the vehicle that make rejection an attractive/viable option (see the various discussions on this forum and others for how difficult that can be, not least given the subjectivity around "satisfactory quality", "fit for purpose" and "free from defect". which are the principal criteria) then you can seek to reject the vehicle, although rejection can be attempted later too.
7. If you do not successfully reject the vehicle at handover and refuse to take delivery, you are in breach of contract and the OPC can claim damages for their loss. Some of those damages are set out in the contract (e.g. storage costs) and some are not.
8. If you refuse to take delivery, the OPC as the innocent party (under the contract, at least) is under an obligation to mitigate their loss. With current prices as they are, in practical terms that means they are likely to ask you to confirm that you no longer wish to take delivery of the vehicle and they will try to sell the car to another purchaser. You would most likely receive your deposit back, although the OPC could probably wait until the car was sold to another purchaser before doing so if they wanted to.
9. If you do successfully reject the vehicle (whether at handover or, as with the original poster, at a later date) you should receive a refund in full. That is not a mitigation by the OPC (because only an innocent party mitigates); it is the proper remedy due to the purchaser in the case of rejection.
10. Asking your OPC to warrant that there has been no damage to the vehicle since leaving the factory does not give you greater protection than if you simply find out later that there has been damage.
11. The warranty would only allow you to cancel the contract and receive a full refund if it was given when you originally entered into the contract (when you paid your deposit), and if you managed to prove that the warranty was a factor in you deciding to enter into the contract. That would clearly not be possible.
12. If you do find out that there was damage to the vehicle since it left the factory, regardless of whether your OPC told the truth about it, your remedies will be either to seek damages or to reject the vehicle.
13. In the first case, damages would be based on the value of your loss (most probably repair costs, time associated with repairs etc.) but will not be punitive (in the sense that the OPC will not be punished over and above the numerically quantifiable level of loss you have suffered) and will be subject to certain rules on how direct, foreseeable etc. that loss was.
14. In the second case, you will have to negotiate the same hurdles for rejection as mentioned previously, which may or may result in you getting a refund.
I use "you" above in a general sense, by the way, not referring to any poster in particular!
Thanks resjud that is useful and informative.
As this is my “day job” too it’s worth pointing out to other members that there will be potentially other factors in play over and above the sales order contract. The sales of goods act is an example but there are a number of other UK laws which will influence any given contract interpretation. The sales order also mainly deals with the transactional process only.
This is a dry subject with potentially contradictory areas so a forum is not the best place to discuss and digest I think.
My main point remains that our cars should be in the condition we expect (and advertised) and there are a number of courses of action available if we are unhappy with the product at point of delivery and we shouldn’t feel “cornered” because of a sales order contract
I agree completely Jon (save that the Sale of Goods Act has not been applicable to the current discussion since 2015 - it was in relevant part replaced by the Consumer Rights Act) and exploring every possible avenue (including "non-legal" solutions) with an OPC to ensure we end up happy should definitely be the goal.
That said, having an idea of the underlying rights and obligations of each party could make the difference between an OPC taking someone seriously or not, and can help people frame requests in a reasonable way that could be more likely to result in a satisfactory outcome.
Agreed completely and happy to be corrected re SOGA. My job is exclusively related to healthcare industry contracts these days which are are very different kettle of fish!
Regarding any damage in transit is it not the case that the manufacturer may opt to repair it and deliver it to the OPC/customer as a new vehicle and could not therefore be obliged to declare any damage and repair since it left the factory?
