So the Watford County Court recently found in favour of our client, a trade buyer, who had relied on a declaration made by the trade seller that the vehicle had never been a ‘total loss’, before making a successful bid on it at auction.
Upon taking delivery of the vehicle the buyer immediately discovered that the vehicle had a catalogue of serious faults, which rendered the vehicle unroadworthy and pointed to heavy accident damage.
An independent consultant motor engineer’s report concluded that the vehicle was not only unroadworthy but a total loss.
It transpired that the vehicle had previously been registered to a national rental company, where it had been involved in an accident, but since the company self-insured it did not register the accident damage with HPI as a total loss. This appeared to be the seller’s principal argument!
Regardless, the accident damage had been deliberately hidden from superficial view. However, upon closer inspection the state of the vehicle was obvious and would have been so to any casual observer and certainly a competent and honest trader.
To compound matters, in breach of the Courts directions, the Defendant failed to file a witness statement or adduce any evidence in support of its defence for which its representative received a dressing down from the Judge.
Unsurprisingly, the trade seller was found to be in breach of contract and was ordered to make a full refund plus costs to our client.
Another famous victory for common sense, justice and Lawgistics!
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