Bought car with major, dangerous, fault.

[Effingcars]

Bought a car from eBay. The seller described it as a good runner and it had a lot of work put into maintaining it. It was described as an ideal car for a new driver or to learn in.

The car was uninsured, so a test drive was not doable, but they showed all the receipts for the services and things done to it, and it sounded fine.

It's an automatic (this is important).

It drove home fine, used the foot brake, not the handbrake throughout.

Couldn't park inside yesterday, so parked in road.

Moving other cars around today, had to use the handbrake - and it doesn't work!

I know caveat emptor etc, and as it was a private seller it's sold as seen.

However, I also know it is illegal to sell an unroadworthy car as a runner (and the ad states it is good to go and could be driven away).

I've contacted the seller, but they're ignoring.

What exactly can we do? I imagine they must have known there was this fault, yet declared it was good to drive.

The car has an MOT until later this year.

OP, you said the seller hasn't responded...has there been no contact at all since the sale?

Have you contacted eBay? If as you say the item was listed incorrectly, then regardless of legal issues they've broken eBay's listing policy and they're usually super strict on that, so you may have an easier way to get your money back.

Always get someone like the AA to do a pre purchase test. Always do a test drive you can get one hour insurance.

We don't need to get hung up on the definition of this phrase. This car is not roadworthy. Whether the seller was aware of this is irrelevant.

For a fault to have developed so quickly, it will be assumed to have been present when OP bought the car. An argument that it "must have" happened after OP bought it won't get the seller anywhere. If they want to argue that, they will need proof, unlike OP who, contrary to some comments on this thread, does not need proof that the car was faulty when she bought it.

Electric handbrakes can just go and if you don't use it, you wouldn't necessarily know.

Just to give you another option , OP, it could just be the switch itself which has failed and a replacement is about £30 and fairly easy to swop over. Sometimes blasting a bit of air through the switch is enough to get it working again.

OP can report it as criminal offence of selling a car that's not roadworthy.

Could also consider action against seller for cost of fettling.

I've a suspicion that Police would push back on basis of it being 'a civil matter' and that small claims action against the seller will be a blood from stone exercise.

I'm pretty sure the police will consider this a civil matter. Even if they didn't it's going to be hard to get a guilty verdict as there is no evidence the handbrake wasn't working at the point of sale.

It might be useful to doublecheck he is a private seller rather than a dealer who is pretending to be a private seller.

You can google his phone number and look at his eBay listings.
A reverse image check of the photos he posted with your car in it might through up any other sites he has posted on.
If he is a dealer then you would have more protection

This is why I'd never buy off a private seller, too many scammers about.

Op I get a quote from a garage as to what it would cost to fix it but otherwise look what you'd get in part exchange towards another car.

My understanding is once you've driven the car away you've accepted the car as it is.

Because when I put it in park it doesn't roll anywhere. I just assumed park was the equivalent of handbrake?

No, it isn't. Park locks the transmission. It isn't as strong as the handbrake, so there is a small risk that your car will roll away. More importantly, if you don't use the handbrake and rely on Park, you are putting pressure on the transmission, which will eventually cause it to need costly repairs. Replacing worn handbrake components is a lot cheaper than replacing the transmission.

With an automatic car, you should first set the handbrake then put it in Park. That avoids putting pressure on the transmission and means that Park mode is acting as a backup to the handbrake rather than being the only thing keeping the car still.

This is awful advice with absolutely no legal basis.

This is all available if you Google and is pretty straight forward. Nothing you’ve said suggested they did anything wrong. You also could have easily caused the handbrake issue and you’re going to struggle to prove when this happened. There’s no reasonable assumption about it.

the sale of a car in a private transaction falls under the principles of contract law and the Misrepresentation Act 1967

In a private sale, the buyer has limited protections. The seller is not obliged to disclose faults unless they actively misrepresent the condition of the car. This is in Smith v Hughes (1871)

If the seller made a false statement that induced the buyer to purchase the car, the buyer may have grounds to cancel the contract - this is in Redgrave v Hurd (1881) that states that even if the buyer could have checked the truth of a statement, they are still protected if they relied on a misrepresentation.

If the seller described the car in a way that turns out to be false, this could be a breach of contract. However, if the sale was agreed on an “as seen” basis with no warranties, the buyer has little recourse.
Oscar Chess Ltd v Williams (1957) distinguishes between mere statements of opinion and contractual terms

Yes if the handbrake didn’t work and was known and sold and not disclosed then this is the car in an unroadworthy condition - the seller may have committed an offence. However, this would not automatically entitle you to a refund unless you can establish misrepresentation or breach of contract.

Many years ago my ex brought a car from an individual. It had a major fault soon after. He got a mechanics report to say a temp bodge job had been done on the car to disguise the fault. Went to small claims court and 'caveat emptor' ruled the day. The other party tried to claim loss of earning to attend the court but the judge threw it out as he had been underhand.

My advice is not terrible. Indeed, most of your post agrees with mine.

The courts do not accept "sold as seen" as being in any way valid.

Nothing I have said has implied any more rights against a private seller than those OP actually has.

The one point where you disagree with me is your final paragraph. This is where you are wrong. Selling a car that is not roadworthy is automatically breach of contract.