Dealers... Vendors Rights?

[Carlosmum]

A friend, in good faith sent her unsuitable daughters pony on sales livery. She explained her reasons for sale and told the dealer of its quirks. Pony was sold, passport exchanged and money transferred from buyer to dealer to vendor minus costs. Fast forward a week, buyer decides she doesn't want pony and is sending it back to dealer. Dealer now demanding repayment of money from original vendor. who is also being stalked on FB because the pony was unsuitable for the buyers needs. What are the vendors rights. Naively as a non-horsey person she went thought this without a written agreement with the dealer. She doesn't want the pony back, she has already lost money through livery/commission. I have suggested she rings BHS for advice but is there anything else I can advise her?

 

[The Xmas Furry]

You'll get a lot of conflicting advice here. Best she speaks to a equine solicitor - as you suggest BHS will give legal advice to gold members.

Dealer is also a twit for not having contract, but crucially accepting the payment in full before making deductions. Imho the dealer needs to accept pony back and refund purchaser, then deal with seller. (But that is my opinion)

If dealer generally sells on behalf of an individual, payment usually gets paid to the owner direct from purchaser. It's a good let out clause for dealers......

Good luck!

 

[smiggy]

If sales livery then yes vendor needs to repay the money. That’s the financial risk you take. Sell to dealer at low price or get better price by using sales livery but horse still belongs to you so if there is an issue, vendor deals with by refunding it but you will need to refund purchase price. Horse never belonged to dealer.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

If sales livery then yes vendor needs to repay the money. That’s the financial risk you take. Sell to dealer at low price or get better price by using sales livery but horse still belongs to you so if there is an issue, vendor deals with by refunding it but you will need to refund purchase price. Horse never belonged to dealer.

However, if dealer mis sold pony and didn't declare issues that the owner had declared to dealer, that's yet another story. (I have no idea if that was the case).

Hence my advice to the owner to seek legal advice if not a clear case.

 

[ycbm]

This one's a real mess!

Dealer didn't own pony so technically a private sale.
But, dealer got paid for pony, not owner, then dealer paid owner so water muddied.
And dealer lied about pony, owner had told truth, water now really murky.

Your friend needs a lawyer I'm afraid ?

 

[ycbm]

Moral of this story for anyone planning to sell through a dealer on an agency basis - always, always talk to the buyer yourself before agreeing a sale.
.

 

[Puzzled]

The dealer should have had a clear agreement stating who owned the pony. She/He should also have held the money for 30 days to be safe. I guess a lot will come down to what is written on the sales receipt.

 

[PeterNatt]

The dealer in this case should not have taken the money. The buyer should have paid the owner directly. The dealer having taken the monies is now treated as being the seller and must refund the monies. The delaer can then claim from the owner. The owner will now have to sell the pony again and pay for all the expenses involved in the sale.

 

[Birker2020]

If dealer generally sells on behalf of an individual, payment usually gets paid to the owner direct from purchaser. It's a good let out clause for dealers......

Good luck!

Yes thats what the sales livery guy put in the contract i had with him when he was going to sell my horse, thus defecting responsibilty and putting (whether intended or not) the onus on me.

I was worried he might not have given full disclosure in order to sell and as i left it for him to deal with I felt very uneasy about whether i would have been liable had it all gone horribly wrong.

 

[ycbm]

The dealer in this case should not have taken the money. The buyer should have paid the owner directly. The dealer having taken the monies is now treated as being the seller and must refund the monies. The delaer can then claim from the owner. The owner will now have to sell the pony again and pay for all the expenses involved in the sale.

If the dealer knowingly lied and told the buyer things she had told him were untrue, she won't necessarily have to pay the dealer back or take the pony back.

This case is a complete mess!
.

 

[ycbm]

Yes thats what the sales livery guy put in the contract i had with him when he was going to sell my horse, thus defecting responsibilty and putting (whether intended or not) the onus on me.

That's bog standard agency sale practice. It's a private sale, not subject to the sale of goods act.

I was worried he might not have given full disclosure in order to sell and as i left it for him to deal with I felt very uneasy about whether i would have been liable had it all gone horribly wrong.

That's why, if he had sold, you should have spoken to the buyers yourself before any money changed hands.
.

 

[ycbm]

The dealer should have had a clear agreement stating who owned the pony. She/He should also have held the money for 30 days to be safe. I guess a lot will come down to what is written on the sales receipt.

There is no requirement or justification for the dealer to hold the money for 30 days. Horses sold by the seller paying commission to the dealer are private sale and not subject to the sale of goods act and there is no right of return by the purchaser.

Provided the dealer has not lied, they may wish to protect their reputation by taking the horse back, but at that point in time it should, unless they have different and legally enforceable contract terms with the seller, become the property of the dealer.
.

 

[Birker2020]

That's bog standard agency sale practice. It's a private sale, not subject to the sale of goods act.



That's why, if he had sold, you should have spoken to the buyers yourself before any money changed hands.
.

I didnt feel i had any say in it. It was clear i was very emotionally invested in the horse and the guy wanted to take charge, i felt i had to insist on being able to visit him. I just wasn't left in a position to have any say, he was going to be marketed as ' the owner had over horsed herself' which of course i hadn't at all.

To be honest i was heartbroken, as I didn't want him to go in the first place but was caught between a rock and a hard place.

So glad he came home, the guilt at giving him up was all consuming and i was miserable.

 

[ycbm]

I didnt feel i had any say so in it and I wasn't in a position to do that. To be honest i was heartbroken, as I didn't want him to go in the first place but caught between a rock and a hard place.

So glad he came home, the guilt at giving him up was all consuming.

Well the only way a person can get that sort of closure is to sell the horse to the dealer, not to sell through an agency sale.

As you feared, if he had been sold and misrepresented by the dealer on your behalf you would have left yourself completely liable by not talking to the buyers about what they had been told by the dealer.
.

 

[Birker2020]

[QUOTE="ycbm, post: 14988510, member: 118895")

As you feared, if he had been sold and misrepresented by the dealer on your behalf you would have left yourself completely liable by not talking to the buyers about what they had been told by the dealer.
.[/QUOTE]
Well yes possibly, but when someone has never been in that situation before I believed what i had been told and by that point i was literally falling apart with the stress of the situation I'd found myself in. Its easy to have the answers when you are on the outside looking in, not so easy when you are going through huge emotional turmoil like i was. I couldn't think straight could barely hold a conversation without crying.

It was suggested that i didn't have contact with a potential purchaser so i assumed this was the way these things worked.

In all the years I've owned horses I've never had to sell one, i had no idea until i started having to try to sell to ' recoup my losses' how heartbreaking it was, for me anyway. So very glad it didn't work out. It won't happen again. In my case no amount of money could have made up for losing my friend.

 

[ycbm]

. Its easy to have the answers when you are on the outside looking in, not so easy when you are going through huge emotional turmoil like i was. I couldn't think straight could barely hold a conversation without crying.

Please don't assume nobody has been through that but yourself.

I gave general advice about how people could avoid the stress that you said you were frightened of.

FROM EXPERIENCE.
.

 

[Wishfilly]

Has the dealer definitely lied about the pony, or has the buyer just decided the pony is unsuitable after all?

I agree that specialist legal advice is needed, because likely the position will depend on who is considered to have actually sold the pony (dealer or your friend). If you friend is legally regarded as the seller, then I don't think the dealer should have taken the pony back without discussing with her BUT this is not a legal opinion.

IMO, friend needs specialist equine legal advice, and should not pay anything to the dealer until they have recieved this.

If it were me, I would send something to the dealer along the lines of "As you have taken the pony back without any discussion with me, I am going to seek legal advice on whether I need to return the money to you. I will not be paying you any money until I have taken legal advice about the situation."

Alternatively, for peace of mind, I would consider taking the pony back directly from the seller, and refunding the money directly to them.

I'd also block anyone who was harassing me on facebook, and communicate via text/email (so that everything is in writing).

 

[Birker2020]

Please don't assume nobody has been through that but yourself.

I gave general advice about how people could avoid the stress that you said you were frightened of.

FROM EXPERIENCE.
.

Hi YCBM. I wasn't assuming anything nor was i being unkind when i said that YCBM. I too was talking in general about it being easy when you are looking in, not YOU yourself but people who judge the situation. i was explaining how i felt. Not as cut and dry as one might think. It was a dreadful experience and one i will never forget and never repeat.

In the OPs case her friend clearly doesn't have to battle her conscience and that's great and many people are able to navigate the sales process without the turmoil i went through because their experiences might differ from mine for other reasons and fair enough, i don't blame them in the slightest.

Everyone experience and reason is different. I did actually reach out to the legal team at the BHS as I'm a gold member to ask what the fall out might have been in terms of liability had disclosure been made and they said to make sure i fully understood the terms of the contract.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

Please don't assume nobody has been through that but yourself.

I gave general advice about how people could avoid the stress that you said you were frightened of.

FROM EXPERIENCE.
.

Deleted reply...

 

[ycbm]

Sorry, are you having a conversation with OP or someone else? I'm confused....

I quoted Birker at that point, don't understand your confusion.
.

ETA, confusion cleared, you have her on UI, I understand that must have looked very odd ?

 

[ycbm]

Has the dealer definitely lied about the pony, or has the buyer just decided the pony is unsuitable after all?

I agree that specialist legal advice is needed, because likely the position will depend on who is considered to have actually sold the pony (dealer or your friend). If you friend is legally regarded as the seller, then I don't think the dealer should have taken the pony back without discussing with her BUT this is not a legal opinion.

IMO, friend needs specialist equine legal advice, and should not pay anything to the dealer until they have recieved this.

If it were me, I would send something to the dealer along the lines of "As you have taken the pony back without any discussion with me, I am going to seek legal advice on whether I need to return the money to you. I will not be paying you any money until I have taken legal advice about the situation."

Alternatively, for peace of mind, I would consider taking the pony back directly from the seller, and refunding the money directly to them.

I'd also block anyone who was harassing me on facebook, and communicate via text/email (so that everything is in writing).

Good advice.
.

 

[Birker2020]

Sorry, are you having a conversation with OP or someone else? I'm confused....

I think it was with me wasn't it?

I think the OPs friend needs to appoint an equine solicitor.

Be good if H&H magazine did an article from a legal perspective on this very subject. I think the legal position on who said what to who and disclosure can potentially be very confusing.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

I quoted Birker at that point, don't understand your confusion.
.

Deleted

 

[Birker2020]

Got it. I don't see their posts, hence thread looking odd...

That happens to me too.

 

[Sossigpoker]

Depends on if the buyer knew that the dealer was acting as an agent and not as a dealer. If they didn't know , then the law will treat it as dealer liability. If they did know , then the actual seller (old owner) is liable.
But only if it is shown that the pony was missold.

 

[Birker2020]

Depends on if the buyer knew that the dealer was acting as an agent and not as a dealer. If they didn't know , then the law will treat it as dealer liability. If they did know , then the actual seller (old owner) is liable.
But only if it is shown that the pony was missold.

Thanks for explaining. So when you say agent you mean sales livery do you?

. Sales livery to me means a horse that has an issue so is being sold that the owner doesnt want to for whatever reason. Dealer means someone who buys and sells (deals) horse.

That's my interpretation but i might be wrong.
So in the event of disclosure who does liabilty fall on?

 

[ycbm]

There no reason that a horse on sale livery should have any issues. All it means is that the owner doesn't want to, or can't, show the horse to prospective buyers themselves.

Dealers may or may not own the horses they are selling, the term is used for both, but the sale of goods act, generally, only applies if the dealer owns the horse they are selling.
.

 

[Sossigpoker]

Thanks for explaining. So when you say agent you mean sales livery do you?

. Sales livery to me means a horse that has an issue so is being sold that the owner doesnt want to for whatever reason. Dealer means someone who buys and sells (deals) horse.

That's my interpretation but i might be wrong.
So in the event of disclosure who does liabilty fall on?

No , an agent sells on behalf of the owner whereas a dealer sells on their own behalf. The Consumer Rights Act I think only applies to dealer sales - when buying from an agent the buyer has fewer rights.
A lot of dealers act as agents but don't make it clear to the buyer so by law default into a dealer sale in any case. So of it's not disclosed whether the dealer is acting as a dealer or an agent, they default to acting as a dealer in the eyes of the law.
This is why so many dealers are stupid in not declaring that they are acting as the agent.

 

[Birker2020]

No , an agent sells on behalf of the owner whereas a dealer sells on their own behalf. The Consumer Rights Act I think only applies to dealer sales - when buying from an agent the buyer has fewer rights.
A lot of dealers act as agents but don't make it clear to the buyer so by law default into a dealer sale in any case. So of it's not disclosed whether the dealer is acting as a dealer or an agent, they default to acting as a dealer in the eyes of the law.
This is why so many dealers are stupid in not declaring that they are acting as the agent.

Aha I see. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[babymare]

Please get good legal advice. Whilst I love this forum you need legal advice.