Sold a caravan with damp

[Julie kirkhan]

Help please?
We bought our Bailey Verona 2013, in September 22 to live in for a few months until our new house was ready. We paid £14495 from a supposed reputable and large trader.
We recently found a private buyer, who brought along an engineer from Utopia, who gave us the news that there is 70% damp due to damage to the floor behind the toilet.
We lost the sale, at £11000.
We are still in warranty, and the dealer will fix the problem, though they say they won't come and fetch it ( we can't tow, never have been able to).
They say they would buy the van back from us for £9500.
But my issue is that the pre- check list has both the floor and the damp as being ok.
Trading standards are saying it's up to us to prove we were mis sold the van.
We were campers many moons ago, and loved living in the caravan, it's a beauty, but our health prevents us from caravanning any more
Any advice please and thank you.

 

[Mr Plodd]

Seek professional legal advice, dont rely on forum members who, though undoubtedly having the very of best of intentions, are not Legally qualified.

My "feeling" is that you shoukd be entitled to some recompence, but I am not a legal expert on such matters.

 

[otherclive]

There is the CRA 2015 consumer act which you should look act. It can be found via an HMG website. But as Mr Plodd says it’s better to seek legal advice. I would direct you to Which Legal Services that some members have found to be very helpful. The cost isn’t expensive and you get a years unlimited advice. One step you could take is to use an Approved Workshop Scheme engineer to carry out a full damp survey and hopefully pinpoint the source and extent. Then you could get an independent estimate of repair costs.

Bear in mind that the market seems to have gone over its peak for prices as more pre owned vans are being sold.

Good luck.

PS under the CRA 2015 you should not bear the cost of returning it for repair. But you can hire drivers who will tow your caravan to a location. If that’s not too expensive that might be an option to move things on so you can get a sale in time for summer.

I want to return my goods, what are my rights? - Which?

Your legal rights depend on where you purchased the item and why you want to return it. Learn about online returns, faulty goods rights and store returns policies.

www.which.co.uk

Consumer Rights Act 2015

www.legislation.gov.uk

 

[RogerL]

You will need to get the caravan back to the selling dealer at your expense - touring caravans are considered "portable" items.

 

[otherclive]

Selling back to the dealer may be your better option as presumably they will collect it and it’s off of your hands. Admittedly their offer is £1500 below your desired selling price but at around 1/3 less than you paid in September 2022 it’s around the normal mark up.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Unfortunately the Trading Standards are correct. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA), if it's more than 6 months from the point you took possession, it is up to the customer to establish and if necessary provide the evidence the goods were mis-sold.

I do wonder if the fact you have never towed, raises the question of how you got the caravan. If the dealer delivered as part of the contract to purchase, then he might be obliged to collect it, but i'm not sure.

As others have said you really need to seek professional legal advice. The legal guys at the Consumers Association (who publish Which? Magazine) are probably more clued up on the application of the CRA than most high street solicitors.

 

[Buckman]

As dealer has agreed to do the repair, it is now up to you to get the caravan to the dealership. Therefore there is not issue with dealer or using CRA 2015.

However you need to get the caravan to the dealer and then collect it again at a later date once it has been repaired. There are organisations that can legally tow caravans for a price.

Taking into consideration the caravan is now over 10 years old, repairs costing in excess of £1000, cost of hiring someone to tow the caravan back and forth to the dealership, the hassle of selling it, you may be better off accepting their offer or you could say you will let it go for £10,000 and see if they are happy to pay that amount.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Julie,

I can understand your disappointment at this situation, and the possible financial hit on caravans value.

As Buckman has implied your fortunate to have an offer for a repair under the warranty from the seller. You only have to read through a few threads on the forum to realise how difficult some dealers are about things like this.

If you read the terms and conditions of the warranty, that will set out who has responsibility for getting the caravan to the dealers premises for warranty work. If you want to use the warranty, those are the rules you accepted when you purchased the caravan.

Whilst it may be your responsibility to deliver and collect the caravan to the dealers repair shop under the warranty, there is no reason you couldn't ask the dealer to collect and deliver as a paid service separate to the warranty work.

In your fist post you seem to be questioning the original sale because you say

...But my issue is that the pre- check list has both the floor and the damp as being ok...

A pre delivery inspection might have been clear, but it's like a MOT, where it's a statement of condition at the point of inspection and not a guarantee of condition going forward.

This is where the Consumer Rights Act might come in if the seller used a falsified report to entice you buy the caravan. The problem is how do you prove it?

If you had detected the problem and reported within six months of taking possession the CRA automatically assumes a fault was present at the handover, and it would be up to the seller to prove why they are not liable.

Because you only discovered the problem after six months, the CRA changes to requiring the customer to prove it was faulty or had a latent defect at the handover. This is notoriously difficult without independent inspections by expert engineers who might be able to find some irrefutable evidence of long term fault or damage preceding your ownership, thus becoming the sellers liability.

The CRA is a powerful tool, but it has to be used correctly. Normally a CRA action would only be contemplated if a sellers had declined a warranty claim, but in you case the seller has accepted the claim, so in all honesty I don't think there is a reason at this stage to consider the CRA.

The CRA is an immutable option open to you if the warranty repair does not work out.

The ball is in your court, and you need to consider the pros and cons, the effort, the upset, and of course the financial implications of the various options you have.

 

[Raywood]

I agree with the others who say the Trading Standards advice s correct and you would need expert advice to show the problem was there when you bought it. Frankly 70% damp is very unlikely to appear overnight and is probably the result of a longer standing problem but you need some proof. Given the value of the caravan you are probably looking at a claim outside the small claims limit which really means a solicitors advice.
The dealer offer does sound like them trying to get out of it cheaply, although the cost of the repair might well be not far off the difference between what you paid and the offer.
You could try local caravan engineers to see if they can help as for the sums involved a more expensive report could be too costly. Another point is that you have lived in it for somewhere like six months and the dealer in settling could take into account any wear and tear and your usage. On that basis I think I would be looking at threatening proceedings under the CRA to try and get them to up the offer a bit.
If you can ascertain the approximate cost of the repair you should be able to get a claim down below the small claims limit, but still with the need to find someone to move the caravan so there are problems there.
It is a bit of a dilemma getting the way forward right and you may simply have to come to some form of compromise. Not good but sometimes you have to be realistic.

 

[ProfJohnL]

...The dealer offer does sound like them trying to get out of it cheaply,..

I disagree,

I read the situation such the dealer is standing up to his responsibilities under the terms of the warranty.

We don't know all the details, for example the OP hasn't told us how far the dealer is away from the caravans location. Or how the caravan got to its present location.

Dealers offer to purchase the caravan seems to me to be a reasonable normal commercial arrangement. If you decide to sell a caravan, you know that a private sale will usually produce the best price, and dealers offers are usually 10 to 20% less, simply becasue the dealer is mindful of being able to make a profit.

Add into the mix a problem has been identified that will need repairing, and as we know from many past threads damp repairs can escalate their cost depending on what you find when you actually expose the damage. I could well see a dealers costs to repair corner running close to £800 to £1000 taking into account labour and materials, which depress their offer on the caravan. Don't forget under these circumstances none of the cost will be picked up by the caravan manufacturer.

(I don't believe I'm about to write this but) I suggest the dealer has actually acted very fairly and honestly. (Edit) It's the customer who is perhaps hoping for more than is reasonable.

 

[Notmyvan]

When at a caravan dealer I noticed that when a caravan arrived for sale the buyer for the caravan dealer immediately went into the caravan with a moisture dealer and checked for damp.
(you can get of the internet all the locations they check)
Moisture meters are not expensive and anyone considering buying a caravan should use one.
I also sometimes wonder if caravan dealers before a caravan goes up for sale they put it in a shed and put a Dehumidifier inside. I used one to dry out a house which had damp and black mould and they are very effective.

 

[Buckman]

When at a caravan dealer I noticed that when a caravan arrived for sale the buyer for the caravan dealer immediately went into the caravan with a moisture dealer and checked for damp.
(you can get of the internet all the locations they check)
Moisture meters are not expensive and anyone considering buying a caravan should use one.
I also sometimes wonder if caravan dealers before a caravan goes up for sale they put it in a shed and put a Dehumidifier inside. I used one to dry out a house which had damp and black mould and they are very effective.

I am under the impression that they only due the check to try and knock something off the trade in price. Happened with us in 2016 where they "found" damp and offered about £1000 less till I pointed out that the caravan had a damp check by a Lunar dealer the week previously. I also said that if the damp is that bad we will take it back to the other dealer for repairs and cancel the purchase fo our new caravan. Very quick change of mind.

 

[Raywood]

All sensible dealers will do a damp check to protect themselves when buying in a caravan. There do seem to be some who invent it by using condensation usually in the toilet as proof of damp. Do make sure you know the state of yours before selling it into the trade.