Last week someone convinced me to sell them my car, left me a deposit of £500 and took the spares for it that were worth about half that, he's now called me this morning saying he dont want it, now usually id just take the parts back and give him his money back but on the strength of him giving me the deposit I went and got a new battery for it and put 2 new tyres on it as 2 had gone flat and cracked slightly on the walls, this is money I wouldn't have spent yet.

 

has he asked for his money back? and he'll return the spares?

 

yeah pretty much

 

I personally wouldnt and i'd tell him to jog on, its not your fault he's changed his mind.

if you do decide to let him bring it all back, then take out the money for the battery and tyres.

 

See that's along the lines of what I was thinking

 

yeh stuff him thats his problem

hes agreed to buy it and pay'd you the money but if you put tyres and a battery on after he agreed then he doesnt have to pay for them, so i would remove them and put the old bits back on it

 

No he wanted the car as is I just thought I would put them on as I hadn't told him it would need them, but I can't put the old ones back on as they were disposed of, had I been keeping the car my softlines would have been going on so would never have put the tyres on the rst wheels

 

Would you have put the battery and tyres on to sell anyway, to somebody else I mean? Your not in a bad situation really, you just have to sell it again.

 

You didnt really wanna sell the car anyway did you lol.He has done you a favor.

 

Everyone knows what a deposit is for, so it's tough really. Only time I'd ever give a deposit back, is if the buyer had a genuine emergency problem, and you knew they were telling the truth.

I had someone give me a £500 deposit for my engine, quite a few weeks later, he said he couldn't afford it anymore, as his missus would kick off. Fair enough, but he never asked for the deposit back

 

You lucky bugger. He must have money to burn.

 

Tell him tough shit hes lost his deposit and you'll just have to cut your losses with the new parts (although the £500 will cover it).The deposit was left to secure the car, you cant just ask for it back.
Say you've been turning potential buyers away as you thought it was sold,
I assume you didnt write him a recipt for his deposit telling him it was non returnable?

 

i got someone i work with that still owes me £300 for an engine and he paid a £200 deposit, and its been 6 weeks, so ive told him he has a week otherwise its going back up for sale

 

Not really, the market wasn't, and still isn't great for big/well specced engines. So to be honest it just allowed me to justify selling it a bit cheaper

 

tough love tell him to fook of and you want parts back you might end up winning on all counts

 

It's why I never take more than a couple of hundred in deposit, £500 notes is a good chunk and worth kicking off about, £200 is a reasonable amount to have to re-advertise etc.

Personally I would tell him he can bring the parts back and you will give him £300 and the rest you will be using to re-advertise, not forgetting that now it looks suspect to other potenial buyers that you told the car was sold, that the sale fell through.

 

Exactly the problem I found with my engine too. I had it up as provisionally sold for weeks, and then when it fell through, it does make it look like something's up