THE CONFLICTING ADVICE

Experts and affected parties have their say on Colin’s case

BMW PARK LANE: When Colin first tried to return the car, the dealer wrote to say: “…you have visited the business and therefore this will not be regarded as a distance sale”. But it later ditched this argument, and instead claimed the finance deal, made on site, ruled out any distance selling rights.

MOTOR CODES: The industry arbitrator’s spokesman said: “If the consumer decides to cancel the finance agreement within the cooling off period specified in the finance agreement, he will need to find alternative means to pay for the vehicle in question. Of course, if the cooling off period for the sale with the dealer was longer, and it accepted his cancellation, the dealer would refund the money which would be returned to the finance company, but there would be a charge for the early cancellation fee.”

BMW FINANCE: The finance company wrote to Colin, saying: “I understand you feel we should have advised you to use your right to withdraw so then your contract returns to be directly with Park Lane and not BMW Financial Services. We are not financial advisors and this is not something I would expect any of our customer service team to do.”

CITIZENS ADVICE: Its consumer expert, Jan Carton, told us: “When a consumer buys a car, they are sometimes asked to take out two contracts; one for the supply of the car itself and one with a finance company to pay for the vehicle in instalments. In most cases, if a consumer cancels their contract setting out how the car will be paid for, the contract with the garage for the supply of the car would still stand.” FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN: Its spokesman told us “there could still be a complaint about credit broking” if the dealer continued to argue Colin’s original contract was never a distance sale. The spokesman added: “For example, did the dealership mislead the customer into thinking cancellation rights would still apply?” BMW UK: Its spokesman told us: “The original contract of sale was raised, offered and accepted over distance and therefore the customer was correctly advised of his rights to cancel by Park Lane as a distance sale. Consideration for this contract was to be by way of use of own funds.

“The ‘distance’ contract of sale with Park Lane was never completed because on arrival at the dealership the customer entered into an HP Agreement with BMW Financial Services, signed the agreement on trade premises and therefore entered into a new, direct and non-cancellable contractual relationship with BMW Financial Services.”