Just curious....of all those giving advice/arguing on this thread, who is a qualified lawyer?

The duty to take reasonable steps to mitigate loss is trite law.

As someone else said earlier, the obvious thing to go for here is specific performance. I.E you want the car you thought you were buying, not one with a smaller engine.

A large dealer group should be able to locate a 2.0L model no problems.

Send a letter. If the dealer doesn't play ball with you, represent yourself in court. Judges are very skilled at dealing with litigants -in-person on the small claims track.

Once you issue your claim ACAS will be contacting you and the dealership. It will settle before it gets to a hearing.

Are you suggesting that I was bad-mouthing solicitors, if so, you need to read what I actually said.....

That would be no-one legally qualified then....?
I would suggest the OP should be very careful about that.

No-one who is legally qualified and values their practising certificate is going to own up to being legally qualified when giving 'informal' advice over the internet. Or if they do, they are putting themselves in the line of fire.

Advice given, even informally, can result in a professional negligence claim. There have been cases where lawyers have been sued off the back of advice given at parties.

There was also a case where a trainee solicitor's firm was sued because she gave some 'off the cuff' advice in a 5 minute interview to someone who stuck their head round the office door. Advice turned out to be wrong, the person who relied on it lost a considerable sum of money, and the firm got sued.

You'd think this much at least would be plainly obvious!

Oh bollox. If he sues for specific performance and wins the argument then he will get specific performance.

Well, he might follow your advice.

You think being without a car till trial/settlement is more practical, then. What do you recommed - horse and cart? Hire a coolie?







Practically no danger of getting that from you, is there! But seriously, he wants advice. The OP is presumably not so stupid as to think he could get LEGAL ADVICE from an internet chat room. If he wants that, he is I reckon smart enough to know that he'd need to consult a solicitor.

Well the point is he is highly unlikely to 'win the argument' for SP.




No he should buy another car and if he still wants to litigate his claim will be a simple claim for damages based on the difference.

My point exactly, just in more detail. It is beyond me why people purport to give legal advice/explanation on a site like this. It is even further beyond me that people raise issues where it there is obviously a legal aspect. Perhaps I should realise that planet RL Fans is a world on its own...

Its a discussion forum, for people to, well, discuss things - like they might do in, well, a pub for instance - back in the old days when people went to pubs to meet other people and, well, discuss things.

I'm pretty sure that the OP wasn't expecting a fully itemised statement to give to a small claims court, merely pitching a thought out there into the virtual tap room of opinion and see what the sympathy vote was like, not very sympathetic as it happens but still some useful suggestions offered - lets call it discussion eh ?

The OP, who must be feeling somewhat bemused by this diversion, originally said:


Now, I'm struggling to see how anyone could deduce from that, that the OP was expecting, let alone asking for, yer actual formal legal advice? As the Chicken says, it really is just a modern equivalent of casting around your mates and regulars down the pub or club, isn't it?

I don't think a solicitor would be required if the dealership is of a decent size. Just persistence, facts, giving the impression of knowing the law and a bit of legalese should do it (especially IF they may be using false advertising to hook customers in).

I had a problem with a national dealership many years ago where they tried to keep my deposit on a new car when I cancelled due to their non-performance. When I asked for the money back they refused. Effectively, they tried to claim I had changed my mind on a particular day rather than them having lied to me about the availability of said car. I persisted and local management wrote to me saying they had discussed with the salesman and looked at the paperwork and I could get stuffed. When they had given me their timetable of lies in writing I then forwarded in a fax they had sent me (which had the time and date recorded on it) and which proved my version of events was correct and theirs a complete lie. Not surprisingly, I got the cheque by return of post!

They even try it on with loyal customers. I know a guy who had bought a brand new top of the range Porsche every year for about 20 years from the same dealership. One year there was a big problem - it was not fit for purpose. He gave it them back. They tried to keep his deposit (which was significant!). He got it back eventually and needless so say he shifted over to Mercedes, Aston Martin, McLaren, etc rather than ever buying a Porsche again. That cost them!

At what point is a contract entered into here? Is it the initial deposit payment, payment in full or when signing up to finance?

My guess would be right up to payment being made then any paperwork would be full of disclaimers and would be what is an invitation to treat rather than to a binding contract.

Jerry, I am not going to get into one of those interminable "discussions" that go back and forth on here, but I will point out that discussions in the pub are not published or on record for others to read. If you can't spot the issues around people publishing what purports to be legal advice on a public forum then I will leave you to it. Good luck with the "discussion".

Which post "purports to be legal advice" ?

Read the first line of my post. Bye Bye

Anyone who went to court claiming that they took an opinion for which they had asked in an internet rugby league forum, from someone they don't know, pretending to be an aardvark, as formal legal advice, the most likely outcome is they would be sectioned.

You have an opinion, you are entitled to an opinion and you are entitled to express it.

So is everyone else.

Its nice to be able to back up that opinion though rather than stomp off in a Violet Elizabeth Bott huff.

What if they were an administrator of the forum who knew the would-be aardvark's real persona?

Have you got links to these, because they stink of BS to me.

That is purely academic. My logic is thus:
1. If the would-be aardvark was indeed a qualified lawyer, and was known to the administrator of the forum, then it seems to me exceedingly improbable that the question would be posed via a public message board rather than more traditional methods such as, say, over a pint, or down the phone.
2. An administrator who thus chose the forum method of communication in such a case would have to be exceedingly stupid, or mentally defective.
3. We all know that our administrators highly intelligent and not at all stupid.
4. Therefore the situation is purely hypothetical and could not happen in real life.
QED

BS it is not. I think he probably has [url=http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/824.htmlPadden -v- Bevan Ashford[/url in mind.

If you want a brief potted summary, there's an article [url=http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/63824.articlehere[/url, it was first time round but the second appeal went the same way and in general the findings stood.

It wasn't the first meeting that got the solicitors firm in trouble. She was actually going against what the first solicitor told her. It was the partner in the law firm who made the error and made them liable:

"A few weeks later, Padden took the relevant documents to Bevan Ashford’s Exeter office, where partner Gary Mackay witnessed their signature and certified that the consequences had been explained."

I agree that he was complicit, but it seems like he just acted as a document witnesser, perhaps assuming that he could rely on whatever advice had been given by the trainee and not looking into it. However it very clearly was a combination of the first meeting, when insufficient advice was given, and the second, when dangerous assumptions were made, that got them into trouble. Both were at fault, the trainee for not having the skill to see a traincrash coming, and the partner for not supervising/reviewing properly.

Anyway, in law, it was the first (and the second) meeting that got them into trouble, cos the court so found:


And perhaps more to the point,


Mackay could have nipped the trouble in the bud, had he been sufficiently on his toes, but from the claimant's perspective (and in law) the advice of both Shinner and Mackay made the firm liable. Shinner, if you like, set the train running. Mackay failed to apply the brakes. You are free to have your own view, but you are in disagreement with the Judge, the solicitors themselves, and the Court of Appeal.