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I note your comment that you paid with a debit card for the van. By any chance did you pay the deposit for the Van with a credit card and have a receipt showing a separate contract for the purchase of the van and another contract for the extras?

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 provides that, if you did pay with the credit card, then the credit card company  is jointly responsible with Glossops for  getting the van repaired or making a full refund.

As you paid over £33,000 all in then this section does not assist. However, if you have two separate contracts, one for the van and one for the extras, and the van contract was for under £30,000, you could use these provisions to either get your money from the credit card company or for it to chase Glossops.

If you can use these provisions I would send a letter to the credit card company sending them a copy of the latest letter to Glossops. It's important when you write to the credit card company that you head the letter:

"Claim under S75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974"

and you should include the following paragraphs:

- a statement of what you bought, where and when, enclosing any relevant copies.
- A list of all payments with copies of supporting evidence.
- A statement setting out the defects and that it is breach of contract. Enclose any relevant copies of letters ets to support this statement.
- A request that the credit card company refund the whole amount paid or chase Glossops for a satisfactory resolution.

Phil

Just looking back I note one poster commented about advise on the court procedure.

As the claim would be for £33,000 the County Court multi track branch would be used. The case would have a timetable set by the Court at a directions hearing. The steps leading up to the trial will include on-going disclosure, witness evidence and possibly expert evidence. There is likely to be a Case Management Conference prior to trial to ensure the correct amount of time is allocated to the hearing.  The final hearing will probably have a time allocated to it of a day if there is still a dispute by the hearing date.  Multi track cases are very procedural and could take up to 12 months to reach trial. Court fees are high but are usually recoverable by the successful party.

For a no win no fee lawyer, from the facts, and admissions from Glossop described by the OP, it looks a cut and dried case. No win no fee lawyers are entitled to claim a bonus on top of their normal fee if they win and in this case the bonus may be set quite high because it looks like a doddle. You would enter into a conditional fee agreement and agree to pay the insurance premium as the Solicitor will organise insurance cover to cover fees in case he loses. The Solicitor will then serve a county court form on Glossops, known as a Notice of Funding of case or claim, and that tells them that you are ready to issue proceedings and that it is not costing you anything.  It also tells Glossops that they have the potential liability to meet your Solicitors costs. If the insurers pay out they will then be looking to recover from Glossops. Glossops know at that stage that they have to put up or shut up. Pay or go to court. The latter isn’t really an option from what has been said to date and especially as the van was only purchased last year.

The reality should be that once the Notice of Funding has been served it should properly focus their minds to get this sorted. So, it should be one meeting with the Solicitor, then sign the fee agreement and then it gets sorted. However, due to the perils of litigation you never know what may intervene. Perhaps Glossops have a valid claim against Elddis from whom they bought the van, so they may prefer litigation to try and pass any liability to Elddis. Starts to get more complicated at that stage.

Phil

Quote: Originally posted by Jack+Jon on 22/1/2014

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Elddis is involved because they have to ok warranty work or dealer will not get paid for the work. Elddis will also decide whether warranty work can be carried out at dealer or whether it is cheaper to return caravan to factory for the work. While all the op's contact needs to be with dealer you can be sure that Elddis will be very much involved in any decision Glossop take as to how to proceed.

Both Elddis & Glossop will be seeking to minimise their losses on this so their own interests may conflict with each other as well as the op's. I somehow doubt any loss of reputation caused by a thread on UKCS that might be read by less than a 100 forum members most of whom would be unlikely to become Glossop customers anyway will have any bearing on anything.

From past threads it appears Glossop's standard form is to simply stall disgruntled customers in the hope they will eventually give up & go away so probably advisable for op to instigate legal action soonest.

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Quote: Originally posted by iank01 on 23/1/2014

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Elddis may offer the warranty but the claim is against the supplier which in this case is Glossop. The fact that Glossop has to negotiate with Elddis for spares and authorisation is not relevant to the buyer as the purchase contract is between the buyer and Glossop and it is up to Glossop to undertake the repair. I am sure that Phil will back me up on this point.

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Quote: Originally posted by johnks on 23/1/2014

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I always feel that you get a lot further with dealers and suppliers without threatening them and certainly not putting all the info on a forum on the internet. A personal visit to Elddis would have far more dramatic effects imo

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