Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi, here are the facts:

I purchased a 18 year old car from a private seller. Its an old Mazda that is prone to rust. I did not view it and I arranged for it to be collected. I asked the seller if it had any rust underneath and he said "no" by text message and "not as far as he could see" verbally. The people who collected it signed a "sold as seen" receipt on my behalf.

I have now had it inspected and there is quite bad rust on the underneath, probably cost around £1500 plus to fix properly. As its on the chassis, it could be said the road is unroadworthy. It would be quite hard to see the rust just looking under the car and he did send some videos of the underneath to me.

Do I have any legal recourse?

Yeah this really. What does the MOT history for the vehicle say?

If he misrepresented the car as being rust free (as opposed to merely expressing an opinion), then IMHO he's still on the hook.

asside the issue of buying a car privately without even viewing it 🤦‍♂️... did it have an mot? how long ago? a proper vehicle inspection could reveal if any current mot was correctly issued. DVSA might be interested.
as @andy said miss representation is still a thing in private sales.

im struggling to see how £1500 worth of rust degeneration could possibly appear in 10 months unless it was parked in the sea.
im not sure your "collector" signing anything to do with the sale is relevant as he was not the purchaser

The mot was some 10 months ago and I do not suspect any fowl play there.

The chap who collected it did sign a receipt that said "sold as seen" and he did take some photos and sent to me when he collected.

The rust is underneath and would be hard to see without a ramp.

If I issued a small claim, how would I quantify the amount? Could I claim for the full amount? Also, how long would that process take?

~

You would probably have to get a quote to say that is what the repair cost would be.

"No" does seem a very definitive answer but if he decided to defend any claim he would say that in a conversation with you he did make it clear that it was "as far as he could see" and by your own admission you say it would need a ramp.

One line of enquiry could be that you could have checked the previous MOT's using the Car MOT History on GOV website prior to purchase thereby exercising due diligence.  To buy blind is a bit daft in my personal view.  Why did you buy blind?  My guess would be that the car was a deal too good to be missed?