Camping & Caravan Club Insurance

[ProfJohnL]

The Consumer Rights Act 2105 ( and the earlier Sale of Goods Act 1979) requires a retail seller to ensure the the description of any goods under the contract are as described, of merchantable quality and free from defects. This applies to both new and secondhand sales. So if a product sold fails withing the period s defined by the the acts, the seller still has an obligation to provide a remedy. Your rights under these acts are automatic and nothing the seller says or does (except going out of business) can diminish those rights.

The manufacturers warranty is a entirely separate contract withe the original purchaser. It is not automatically transferred to a new owner if the goods are sold. The manufacture is not obliged to transfer the rights under the manufacturers warranty to any subsequent owners, but many will allow some of the benefits to be transferred, provided there is a recorded history of proper service and checks in accordance with the original warranty contract.. The new owner has to apply for them to be transferred.

 

[Raywood]

We are going a long way off the original subject here but I agree completely with the Prof's last post.
If buying a caravan which should still be under guarantee then checking if the caravan has been serviced and making sure the guarantee can be transferred is essential. If it cannot then make allowance for this in the price.

 

[ProfJohnL]

I agree with Ray that the topic seems to have wavered a bit since Grahamh injected a comment about warranty failures, which strictly has no bearing on insurance costs.

However the ball is rolling and there are some important points to be made about who has responsibility if goods become faulty.

Brasso tells us he purchased a caravan that was 18 months old, he doesn't tells how long he has had the caravan or when the damp issue was detected. He simply tells us that Elddis refused to accept liability for the problem.

There could be a variety of reasons for their refusal, but the one that has been suggested is that the last service by the seller was not accepted as being compliant with the Manufacturers Terms & Conditions for the maintenance of the Manufacturers warranty.

Ok that may be the reason and Elddis are entitled to set out any criteria they like as part of their T&C's for their warranty eligibility.

The Seller is complicit in this, becasue if they have implied to the customer that the manufacturers warranty and benefits would be transferred on purchasing the caravan, then that is an implicit part of the purchase contract and one they must complete. The agreed price of the caravan would reflect the perception the manufactures warranty was being offered as part of, or as an inducement to agree the contract.

The simple fact that Elddis refused to accept liability becasue of the service carried out by a non NCC approved workshop as required in the Elddis warrant T&C's means the seller had falsely described the goods becasue the warranty promise could not be successful - whether or not the seller knew this at the time. Traders/dealers have an added degree of expertise and are in a position of trust and should be certain of the information they give to potential customers.

The customer had the reasonable expectation that his purchase would be covered by the manufacturers warranty. That is perhaps an intangible value, but the fact that when a fault did arise that would normally be covered by the manufacturer's warranty, the customer has suffered a tangible loss equal to the inconvenience by loss of availability, cost of repairs, and a potential loss to the value of the caravan because it has now suffered a significant serious fault.

The CRA makes the seller legally responsible for all these issues. However there are a set of time scales for the occurrence of events and actions, which, becasue we do not know the key dates and times of the events, I cannot even estimate the likelihood of success or otherwise of any case if Brasso wanted to pursue it.

The key criteria as far as the consumer legislation are

The goods were not as described, and the goods were in fact faulty or not of a suitable durability for their intended purpose.

 

[Brasso530]

Hi Prof,I agree we have now gone off topic after 2 forum users were just exchanging friendly banter on same van,different insurance premiums.
Anyway,just to clarify my position.i bought a 2014 elddis at 18 mths old,they checked/serviced van and stamped book.I contacted elddis to transfer remaining warranty over,sent paperwork through as requested.Elddis rang me up to say they would not honour it as a non ncc garage had stamped book.I offered to take van to any ncc garage for its 2nd annual service,as it was due.they said there was nothing I could do and matter closed,sorry.
So van serviced,no problem,then at 3rd yer service damp picked up,I'm quite happy to fix any faults on van.
I have no problem with the seller or elddis really,I just think it's a joke,but thems the rules.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Brasso,

I have outlined the legal rules, but its your choice on if or how to use them. My reason for posting them was two fold,

First of all to inform you of what you might want to do, but also becasue a lot of new or potential caravanners often read up about the subject, and if such a thread helps them to avoid a pitfall then all the better.

The advice is not just caravan related it actually applies to all retail sales, from a box of matches to a private jet!

 

[otherclive]

Hi Prof,I agree we have now gone off topic after 2 forum users were just exchanging friendly banter on same van,different insurance premiums.
Anyway,just to clarify my position.i bought a 2014 elddis at 18 mths old,they checked/serviced van and stamped book.I contacted elddis to transfer remaining warranty over,sent paperwork through as requested.Elddis rang me up to say they would not honour it as a non ncc garage had stamped book.I offered to take van to any ncc garage for its 2nd annual service,as it was due.they said there was nothing I could do and matter closed,sorry.
So van serviced,no problem,then at 3rd yer service damp picked up,I'm quite happy to fix any faults on van.
I have no problem with the seller or elddis really,I just think it's a joke,but thems the rules.

Similar rules apply to cars as well. I bought my current car (pre owned) from a dealership that was a Kia main dealer, yet when I had a Kia they gave me so many problems that I decided not to use them again for servicing. So despite that fact that I was informed that the Skoda was in warranty and that they had serviced in accordance with the Skoda service schedule I took it to a long standing Skoda dealership and had it serviced. They found no problems but it ensured that the car was retained within its makers warranty. I will be doing a similar action with my caravan as although the NCC selling dealer had serviced it, the timescales were out of synch with Swifts warranty conditions. So it will have been serviced in December 2017 in order to check out any faults/damp prior to the dealer insurance warranty expiring, and then booked in again for May 2018 to re-align it with the Swift warranty conditions.