Dispute over Trade in Payoff

[Hkps]

Hi - I have traded in old car to buy a new car. My old car has payoff of worth 2500 . We finalized deal with 30000 and got new car after trade in . Now after 15 days dealership is saying they made a mistake in agreement and I have to pay 2500 for my trade in car. Which is big surprise for me . it's not mentioned anywhere in the agreement that I will be taking care of it later . Can you please advise what are my rights in this case .

Thanks

 

[army judge]

Hi - I have traded in old car to buy a new car. My old car has payoff of worth 2500 . We finalized deal with 30000 and got new car after trade in . Now after 15 days dealership is saying they made a mistake in agreement and I have to pay 2500 for my trade in car. Which is big surprise for me . it's not mentioned anywhere in the agreement that I will be taking care of it later . Can you please advise what are my rights in this case .

Thanks

You have no rights.
The dealer doesn't care about your rights.
They have your money.
They know the only way you can undo the deal is by suing them, or contacting your state's attorney general.
Contacting the AG may or may not work.
Suing them will take months, and it may not yield you the result you desire.

You've asked, they said no.
You don't agree.
Looks like you have what some call a Mexican standoff.

 

[Hkps]

Thanks for your Reply! Just to be clear , during negotiation we did mentioned about payoff and confirmed with them couple of time that dealership will be taking care of it ( since payoff is much less than the actual value of trade in vehicle they estimated) . Now all of sudden they are like "we made a mistake and payoff amount need to be paid by me". since they are admitting its a mistake from their end , shouldn't payoff be reported as business loss in their transaction instead them asking me to pay for it ? I hope agreement we signed hold some value !

 

[txls]

Actually the buyer is in the driver's seat, if this payoff equals to a lien on the title. Then the dealer will have to make the payoff in order to obtain the title or they will not be able to sell the vehicle. Did they know there was a payoff? What exactly was the mistake? Did someone just forget to add in the $2500? Normally the $2500.00 would be added in to the total due and you will see it itemized in your paperwork, usually in several places.

 

[Hkps]

Thanks Txls! They estimated my trade in car for $8000 and I owe 2500 on it. Dealer was totally aware of this payoff since beginning and I did confirmed with them couple of times. Fact is that during price negotiation of new car I clearly mentioned to them I don't want to pay any down payment for new car or payoff of old car, which we all agreed and signed contract.

Now twist in story is that they now telling me that they made a mistake that they did not put anywhere in the new car agreement that I am responsible for 2500 of payoff of trade in. And they realized this after 3 weeks!

 

[txls]

My guess is they realized this after three weeks because the office is asking where the title is. It is their mistake and they may just have to eat it. The other side of the coin though is that you probably signed several documents indicating that there is 0 payoff due, which is then a false representation made by you. Will they pursue it through legal process? Don't know, that could be a gamble on your part to tell them to take a hike and see if they think it worth fighting. Rather than trying to make you pay outright for the payoff, a better solution would be to redo your contract. One question is do you know if there is a lien on the title for this payoff? If so, as said before they will have to pay it off to get the title. However, if it is just a signature loan with no lien and they already have free and clear title, then they have no obligation to pay it off.

 

[Hkps]

Yes- there is Lien on the title for payoff. Do you think legally they can hold back issuing tag of new car to me? I still have temporary tag on new car. They are one of the biggest car dealer in town and it's difficult to digest they made a mistake after 7-8 hours of negotiation when we bought new car. I think next they would start negotiating about compensating some percentage of payoff. I really don't want to get into all this again. Any advise at what point I should involve a attorney in this ?

 

[txls]

No they cannot legally hold back on issuing your tag. You can simply tell them, "hey I am signed, sealed and delivered. You were well aware of the payoff, I'm sorry if you feel like you made a mistake, but as far as I'm concerned everything was done as agreed, and the payoff is your responsibility." If I were in your shoes I would not involve an attorney, unless they do. Chances are it is not worth their time and money to involve an attorney, but I can't guarantee that of course. I am not a lawyer, but I have 35 years experience in the car business so take my advice accordingly. I've never had this situation in all those years, so I can only guess how we would handle it, but I can't of course speak for what another dealership would do. I just don't see any way the can force you to pay this, unless like I mentioned before, they try to go after you for making false statements regarding zero payoff due.