Buying and Selling Vehicles

Trading Standards & Product Safety Regulations.
Sale Of Goods & Vehicles

Online classified advertisement of sale of used vehicles

Introduction

The internet amongst other things have helped people connect with each other at individual levels for buying and selling various used products / services, ranging from real estate to vehicles. Buying and selling vehicles has moved away from conventional stores and markets to individual homes where transactions are done privately between the buyer and the seller.

More often than not it is seen that the sellers are not technically sound about the product they are selling and are not aware of the laws and rules that they would need to comply, before selling the product. The same would apply to lay buyers. Malfunctioning of the product after purchase makes the buyer feel cheated which leads to formal complaints against the seller though the seller never intended to cheat or defraud the buyer.

In a similar case, our client got trapped in a regulatory/criminal proceeding on the allegation that he had intentionally sold a defective vehicle to a buyer, in contravention of the trading standard and product safety regulations.

Facts of the case

Our Client was involved in the occasional business of locating, buying and selling vehicles from public auctions, to re-sell them to potential buyers in the open market. Though our Client was not a professional vehicle dealer or expert, he used to take all reasonable measures to ensure that the vehicle that he is selling is in a good and roadworthy condition having had all the relevant documentation.

Having bought a vehicle at an auction, it would then go through a full service along with any required repair and replacement work. Only upon obtaining a roadworthy certificate from a licensed mechanic our client advertised the vehicle for sale.

In this case our Client after ensuring the vehicle was roadworthy had advertised the vehicle on a famous ecommerce portal. The buyer to her satisfaction did a test drive of the vehicle and even asked our Client to do further works on the vehicle before she purchased it.

However, subsequently the purchaser filed a complaint with the trading standards at the local authority against our client, on the grounds that our client had intentionally sold her an unsafe vehicle and had further alleged that the vehicle was not in a running and roadworthy condition.

The legal proceedings:

Pursuant to the complaint the local authority initiated regulatory & criminal proceedings against our client on the charges that our Client knew that he was selling a dangerous vehicle which was not roadworthy.

The prosecution based their evidence on the expert report of an automobile engineer (the “expert”). The expert had inspected the vehicle and identified that there is a potential issue that exhaust fumes could enter the cabin of the vehicle due to a faulty exhaust system. The expert further opined that the fault with the exhaust system existed from the very “inception”.

The Trial

Before the trial we had written to the prosecution seeking disclosure of any further evidence or statements that they would likely to introduce or use at the trial. However, the prosecution had maintained that there is nothing further to disclose.

However, on the day of the trial, the expert for the first time, pointed out to the court that the defect in the exhaust pump of the vehicle from “inception” does not mean the day on which the vehicle was sold to the complainant by our Client but on the contrary it means that the fault existed from the time the vehicle was manufactured.

Based on this disclosure we immediately intervened and submitted before the Judge that the defect in the exhaust pump was undetected by the automobile experts at the manufacturing factory and nor was it noticed during various MOT tests which were done on the vehicle from time to time. Our Client is a lay person without expert knowledge on vehicles, therefore, when the defect went unnoticed by experts, it is highly unlikely that it would be noticed by our Client. It was further, submitted before the Court that our Client had sold the vehicle in good faith without having any knowledge that the exhaust pump is defective and had taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the vehicle was in a condition to be sold.

The Judge based on the evidence of the expert and on our submission, dismissed the case and discharged our Client from all the allegations. The Judge further observed that the clarification of any term or portion of the expert’s report can only be done by the expert and not anyone else including his employees or colleagues.

Conclusion

In the modern day of online advertisement and trading, this case should be an eye opener for all amateur sellers to ensure that reasonable safety checks are done before selling any used product to a buyer. It would also be advisable for the seller to seek technical and legal assistance before selling products like real estate, vehicles and other high-end technical products.

This case can also act as a guideline for sellers of vehicles to ensure that they conduct an expert’s inspection of the vehicle to identify if there are any underlying defects / faults which would normally not be identified by someone other than an expert.