So was the judge’s comment at a recent hearing where our member faced a claim for damages of more than £7,000 for the required repairs of a nine-year-old vehicle with 68,000 miles.
The issue before the court was whether the vehicle was of satisfactory quality under s.9 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, taking into account its price, age, and condition at the time of sale/delivery.
The judge considered that there would more than likely be issues with a vehicle of that age, hence his comment above, (nicely doubling as my article’s title).
Importantly, the vehicle had been sold with a warranty, which was live when the faults were detected some months post sale/delivery, but the consumer chose to ignore this, incurred third party repair costs, and then presented our member with the bill because they wrongly thought they had the right to do what they wanted.
While the judge was not without criticism for our member, since they had failed to respond properly to the initial complaint, he observed that the consumer had to follow the law, and based on the facts, the judge was not satisfied that there had been any breach and further or in the alternative, the consumer had failed to mitigate his loss. Claim dismissed.
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