Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain .

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Thu 1 Nov 2012 17:21
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - tony g
Hi all,
Most posts on HJ are from consumers who feel to have been unfairly dealt with by car dealers .
I would like to relate a dealers perspective from the same problem .

A few days ago I received a phone enquiry on a Suzuki Sx4 diesel I advertised on autotrader .The buyer wanted to buy the car on behalf of his daughter and wanted to part exchange a Peugeot 1007 diesel .He offered £1500 plus the Peugeot .I agreed to the deal after doing a little research .It wasn't a good deal as a 1007 is not a sought after car ,and their wasn't much profit ,but times are heard and it gave me a different car to go on with .

The buyer transferred a deposit of £1000 into my account and agreed to pay the balance when they collected the car .The day before he was due to collect the car the buyer rang me to ask if the car was a 4 wheel drive .I said no ,he said he presumed all SX4 were 4wd .He didn't want the car because it was front wheel drive .Nothing in my add said 4wd .

I checked on autotrader ,out of 412 sx4 for sale 12 were 4wd .

So I did what I thought was reasonable, I said I would return £900 of his deposit ,which I've done .i retained £100 to cover the time I put into the deal ,HPI check on his px etc .

Was the buyer pleased at my reasonable approach ,No way ,unbelievably he wasn't happy .

I could have kept the whole of his deposit ,I could have kept £500 for the loss of profit .We didn't sign an order ,but paying a deposit forms a contract .

Or am I wrong or unreasonable ,it's not always car dealers that are wrong .

Tony g







Edited by tony g on 01/11/2012 at 17:23

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Thu 1 Nov 2012 17:27
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - Collos25

I think in this case you are being very reasonable.

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Thu 1 Nov 2012 17:29
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - madf

I think you are wrong.

You should have kept the £1000.

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Thu 1 Nov 2012 17:45
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - Auristocrat

Seems a very fair stance to me.

I would have told him that I could have retained the whole deposit. The £100 you have held back must have just about covered your costs in terms of the HPI check and time.

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Thu 1 Nov 2012 17:50
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - tony g
Hi I did explain that I could retain all the deposit ,but the buyer thought I was being overly aggressive !

Who would be a car dealer ,we don't seem to be appreciated even when we're trying to do the right thing .

Any thoughts on the legality of a contract being entirely based on the provision of a deposit .Without any supporting paperwork .any precedents ?

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Thu 1 Nov 2012 18:13
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - RT

It sounds a perfectly reasonable stance to take - if the buyer wanted 4wd then they should be prepared to ask rather than assume - it's entirely reasonable to retain the amount of your costs incurred and return the remainder of the deposit.

AFAIK written and verbal contracts are just as binding in law - the grey area is the difficulty of proving who said what in a verbal contract.

This issue of 2wd SUVs will only get worse given the current rash of SUV lookalikes being sold with 2wd.

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Sun 4 Nov 2012 10:29
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - bananastand

Tony you are being more than reasonable and I can't believe the customer won't accept that. A deposit is meaningless if you can just get all of it back on a whim!

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Sun 4 Nov 2012 10:31
Any - Deposit refund ,is it reasonable to retain . - bananastand

By co-inkidink I have just posted a new topic on 2wd SUVs.

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