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| Cars line up for the first Ballito Street Heroes for some hard racing. A private buyer can race it, brake it and still sell it voetstoots. |
AN Edendale man who bought a Jetta from a private yard in the
area
asked Witness
Wheels what legal recourse he had after the car stopped running on
the second day after the sale.
He eventually towed the car back to the man who had sold it to him,
who then took nine months to give him his money back, only last week returning
two thirds of the money he was paid.
The seller told Witness
Wheels he had deducted about R14 000 for the repairs that were
necessary after the buyer had damaged the vehicle.
The buyer is livid, saying he did not drive the vehicle 20 km
before “everything stopped”, and that the vehicle had stood in his yard while he
tried to get it running again. He had then towed the car back to the seller and
demanded the full amount he had paid for the dud car.
“How can the law help?” he asked.
The first thing we checked was whether the seller was a dealer or
not.
The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) bans people who ordinarily offer
to supply goods from using the voetstoots
clause, but not — note — private sellers. The voetstoots
clause basically allows private sellers to flog a car that has to be
“pushed by the feet”, which is what voetstoots
means in Afrikaans.
As the seller of the Jetta has a yard full of cars, it could be
argued that he ordinarily supplies cars and is therefore bound by the CPA’s
regulations.
This would have included giving the buyer a full list of the
Jetta’s faults and allowing a six months return period.
Witness
Wheels
probed
some more and it emerged that the buyer had, after pushing the car back to his
house, tried to get the Jetta running again by having a back-yard mechanic fix
the gearbox.
That repair job nullified any slight claim the buyer may have had
over the seller. The buyer must, therefore, try to make peace with the little
money that was returned to him.
As the CPA stands, the seller could have argued at length in court
that he is actually a private seller who is still protected by the voetstoots
clause as set out in the CPA, and that he did not have to take back or
refund the buyer for goods that were damaged.
