AIBU to ask for a bit of legal advice here...seriously panicking!

[spg1983]

Hi,

I recently had my first child (she's 3 weeks old). Before I had her, I had a small 'runaround' car, 13 years old, reliable little runner but quite a bit of cosmetic damage. Anyway, DH and I decided it was too small to put baby's car seat and pram in so we advertised it to be sold. We checked the going price and given the damage (which had rusted) plus the fact it only had 1 month mot, we reduced the advised price - the car in 'poor' condition was worth £780 according to this site, we advertised it for £450 to allow a buyer to potentially still have money to sort the rust.

Anyway, I bought a new car and a young lad bought my old car. I was quite emotional as I'd had the car for 9 years. I was a bit nosey and decided to 'look up' the new owner on Facebook/twitter cos (this sounds silly, sorry!) I still wanted to be able to check on my beloved car! I found him, but was a bit gutted to see he'd given the car a really derogatory nickname and was taking the mickey out of loads of its features, i.e. tape player etc.

Anyway, I soon forgot about that as 3 hours later I went into labour. I had a spare couple of minutes this morning and looked at his profile again, only to find that the car has failed its MOT and by the sound of it he doesn't want to pay to fix it and has decided to scrap the car. There's some pretty mean comments about me on there and his friends are all suggesting he takes legal action against me if I don't refund him. He's not got in touch...yet, but I'm thinking he probably will.

When he looked at the car, he couldn't drive it as he wasn't insured but I took him for a drive in it. I was 100% honest about the damage, the advert had close-up pictures of it and he looked at it when he saw the car and still decided to buy it.

What happens now? If he gets in touch am I obliged to refund the money? Help please!!

[digerd]

Oh, well, just proves that Facebook has its uses afterall!! Good on you OP for following it up.
Great result. I love an ending where the 'baddy ' is proved bad and the 'goody' is proved good. < satisfied smile>

[mellen]

You can have a car MOT'd any time you like -doing it within a month of expiry allows the extra time to be added on to the next MOT, so you could have 13 months the next time, but if you arent worried about that you can do it any time.

[unlucky83]

No-ones said this yet - you can have your car MOT'd a month before the expiry (not saying you did OP - and anyway he doesn't have a leg to stand on) ...
If a car is for sale with one months MOT -it means one of two things ...seller doesn't think it will pass - you always get more than the MOT charge with 12 months MOT
or (even worse) it has been MOT'd and failed and it is too expensive to repair (not sure if you can still get away with this now it is all computerised.)...
Also he would have taken the copy of the MOT - which now have the advisories on it ...
Hopefully he has learned a lesson in life - never buy a car with a months MOT and not be prepared to spend lots of money on it/scrap it....
(BTW I know why you looked ...I wonder what happened to my last car -had it for10 years and was attached to it - still look out for it around the local town and when MOT ran out (it had 6 months) wondered how I could find out (discreetly) if he'd scrapped it ...don't remember guys name or I be tempted to look on FB ...)

[spg1983]

Yes, I hope so too. And yes, the stalking has hopefully paid off! I didn't tell his mum I'd got copies of it all - wanted to have an ace up my sleeve! Anyway that should be the end of it, and I think someone's going to get a telling-off from his mum, she was almost apologetic to me by the end of the call! Even asked if the baby was here yet and how she was! She seemed like a really nice lady to be fair...

[FakePlasticLobsters]

So the Facebook stalking paid off then?

Hope that this is the end of it OP.

[spg1983]

Yes I think she realised that I'd been honest and I also explained that I'd priced the car at £450 as I realised that the rust took a lot off the value, but he was quoted £400 ish to sort it so if you add that to the £450 then it matches the average value of that kind of car in good condition. I explained that without the rust I'd have asked for £800ish.

I have got a copy of the advert plus screenshots of his Facebook saying he was going to view a rusty car and then subsequently saying he'd bought a rusty car - there's no way he didn't know about the rust and that proves it 100%!

[Sparklingbrook]

How was it left? Did she back down?

[wibblyjelly]

Have you kept a copy of the advert, just in case you need to prove it to her? Can't believe he is old enough to buy a car, but needs his mum to call you on his behalf!

[Sparklingbrook]

His Mum?? His Mum??

[spg1983]

Update...his mum called me tonight - luckily thanks to my stalkerish ways it wasn't a total surprise to hear from her. She told me what the problem was and it was exactly what I'd highlighted in the advert, i.e. the rust. Only problem was she'd not seen the advert before buying the car, her son had done that part of it, so she was under the impression I'd duped them. Felt awful but re-iterated I'd been honest so hopefully won't hear from them again.

[RebeccaMumsnet]

Hi there,

We have moved this thread from AIBU to legal.

[Gingersstuff]

We bought a car for £750 a couple of years ago from a private seller much like yourself. Not even three weeks later the head gasket blew along with something else and, well, the car was a write-off and we got £140 scrap for it :-( It was a bitter pill to swallow but it didn't even occur to us to go back to the seller...he would no more have known it was about to happen than we would have! The fact is if you're going to buy an old banger, you take your chances. The laddie hasn't got a leg to stand on despite what his pals tell him... but I do agree that stalking him on FB is just plain weird!

[FakePlasticLobsters]

"The CAB website basically says he only has a leg to stand on if the car was deliberately misrepresented. It also advises buyers that they probably shouldn't take legal action over private sales as they'd be so unlikely to win."

Has seeing that on the CAB site set your mind at rest?

You know you did a fair representation and you've seen the advise not to take legal action, none of which his friends bothered to report back to him on Facebook.

It sounds like a lot of posturing and moaning, but I don't think he will come back to you.

[Sparklingbrook]

You could post in legal on here if you want a more informed legal opinion?

[Catsdontcare]

If he posted on mumsnet we would all put him straight! As you can see!

[Catsdontcare]

He's just venting and his mates are geeing him along because that's what mates do, tell you your right even when your not.

[hopefloats]

This is what you get for stalking him on FB. If you had minded you own business, you wouldn't be in a worried pickle now. Remind me not to buy a pram from you

[spg1983]

I know - I'm an idiot for looking him up! The mot was yesterday. The CAB website basically says he only has a leg to stand on if the car was deliberately misrepresented. It also advises buyers that they probably shouldn't take legal action over private sales as they'd be so unlikely to win.

[oldraver]

The chance of a 13 year old car passing the MOT first time would be slim I think. I have a car the same age and it has passed the last two years but only because it had work done on it prior to MOT.

He is going to need to spend money on it, had it of had say 9 months MOT i dont think he would be kicking up as much fuss, it just seems unfair to him as he has only had it a month

[Sparklingbrook]

If he wasn't on FB you wouldn't even know about any of this.

[plantsitter]

He is allowed to vent on Facebook to his mates about it, even though he's talking bollocks. Just hide him on Facebook and stop worrying about it.

[FakePlasticLobsters]

OP why don't you look on the CAB website, that way you will see exactly what his friends did, not just the bits they picked out and quoted.

Could you tell when the car failed the MOT? That might help set your mind at rest because if it was a week ago or something, and he hasn't been in touch then he's probably not going to be.

If it was this morning, he might listen to his friends and try to speak to you so it will help if you know everything CAB have said on their website about selling cars and can speak to him fully aware of the facts.

But from what you say, you have been honest about everything to him and he will know that. He might have sounded off to his mates about not being told but that could just be face-saving in front of them and he really knows full well that he can't complain to you that you were not honest.

[spg1983]

Ok and the stressing stops NOW! Thank you all for making me feel better.

[WorraLiberty]

Dearie

This is tantamount to pressing your ear against a teenager's bedroom door and eavesdropping on their silly conversations with their friends.

Of course you're not going to like what you hear, but it's your own fault for doing it...

[spg1983]

Ok thanks...yeah I admit it is very weird that I wanted to check my car was being looked after - guess I was a bit too attached to it!

I definitely didn't say it'd pass an mot, I said it'd had no major issues in the past but I'm not a mechanic so wouldn't be able to say yes or no. I made 100% sure not to say yes or even say I 'thought' it would pass.