A resident of Syktyvkar bought a BMW X4 from an official dealer – Borishof 1 for 2.58 million rubles. During the warranty period, the customer discovered that the paint on the front bumper had peeled off. The nearest BMW dealer checked the car and concluded that it was a manufacturing defect.
The buyer sent a claim to Borishof 1, asking to reduce the purchase price by 100,000 rubles. She explained that she was pregnant and was unable to make up the car herself for repair due to the remoteness of the service dealer centers in Perm. To get from Syktyvkar to Perm by car, you need to cover more than 750 km.
The seller did not respond to the letter. The woman sent another claim to the dealer, demanding that the front bumper be repaired. She didn’t answer anymore.
She then demanded that the seller terminate the contract, return the cost of the car, pay the difference between the amount paid and the current price of a foreign car, a fine, a fine, compensation for moral damages and compensation for the costs for the investigation. The dealer replied to this letter that there was no reason to comply – the defect was minor and could be rectified. But for this she herself has to come to a service center in Perm for repairs. The latter refused.
The woman went to court and asked from the seller to recover 2.58 million rubles paid for the car, the difference between this amount and the price of the car at the time the dispute was resolved – 420,000 rubles , compensation for immaterial damages in the amount of 50,000 rubles, a fine, a fine and court costs.
After learning about the lawsuit, the dealer voluntarily decided to pay the woman 45,976 rubles, but in the end he transferred only 40 thousand rubles.
The amount did not please the car owner and she continued the trial. All the next three courts sided with the dealer. The courts ruled that the defect was insignificant and removable and that the defendant did not make repairs because the plaintiff had not delivered the car. The dealer’s remoteness and her pregnancy were not taken into account. The woman appealed to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court ruling
The Supreme Court recalled that the delivery of bulky goods for repair is the right, not the obligation of the buyer in accordance with paragraph 7 of Art. 18 of the Law “Protection of Consumer Rights”. It is also incorrect that the lower courts considered the customer’s arguments about the remoteness of the dealership and her pregnancy to be trivial and did not take into account the cause of the dispute or the previous behavior of the seller, who did not respond to her letters .
In addition, according to Article 22 of the Act on the Protection of Consumer Rights, the consumer’s claims for a proportionate reduction in the price of the goods must be satisfied by the seller within ten days from the date of submission of the demand, or the seller must repair defects free of charge. If this is not done, the seller will have to pay the consumer a fine and the consumer will have the right to make other claims provided for in the Consumer Rights Protection Act.
The Supreme Court quashed the appeal and the cassation and sent the case back for a new trial.
A picture flickr.com/Karlis Dambrans