MOTOR-CAR PURCHASE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 289, 1 September 1933, Page 13

MOTOR-CAR PURCHASE

Agreement Conditions COMPANY NONSUITED Following on a judgment In which he held that certain conditions of a purchase agreement used by Dominion Motors, Ltd., amounted to a penalty, Mr. E. Page, S.M., in a completed decision, given in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, nonsuited the company on the whole of its claim for £336/17/11 against Edmund W. Cotter. The motor-car in respect ot which the claim had been made was handed back to the company by the purchaser. Cotter, when he found that he was unable to keep up the monthly instalments. The company claimed the full amount of the instalments owing, three instalments due at the time of the repossession, and an Insurance premium The magistrate, in his first decision, held that the company could not recover the Instalments that had not fallen dueat the time of the repossession of the car.

Yesterday the magistrate said that when a judgment of nonsuit was given in this case the question whether three instalments of purchase money amounting to £BO, overdue at the date of re possession of' the car, and an insurance premium of £lO/3/2 paid a month prior thereto, were recoverable, was reserv ed for further consideration.

While the contract was subsisting these amounts could, no doubt, have been sued for as soon as they became due, said Mr. Page, but the repossession put an end to the contracts. The agreement was not a hire purchase, but a sale and purchase agreement, so that the instalments were due not for the hire of the car, but as part of the purchase money. The vendors’ sole remedy after repossession became one for damages for breach of contract, and not one for recovery of any "part of the purchase money. ■ “I think that the recovery of the insurance premium stands on a similar footing," the magistrate. continued. “The amount would’form an Item for consideration in an action for damages, but, the agreement having been put an end to, I do not think the premium can be separately recovered. The judgment of nonsuit must, therefore, apply to the whole of the claim." At the hearing Mr. A. M. Cousins represented the company, and Cotter •was represented by Mr. S. G. Stephenson. ~