Seller fined Dhs10,000 for tampering with car’s odometer in Al Ain

Al Ain Civil, Commercial and Administrative Cases Court obligated a man to pay Dhs85,000 plus Dhs10,000 as compensation to another for tampering with the odometer of a car offered for sale.

The victim bought a car from the defendant through an ad on social media but discovered later that latter was tampered with its odometer. It was proven that the car traveled a distance of 148,940 km but the odometer was then reset to 12,858 km, which, according to the buyer, constituted a hidden essential defect and fraud that should justify the termination of the contract.

Earlier, the victim filed a lawsuit against the defendant in which he requested the court to revoke the car sale contract and obligate him to pay Dhs93,628 on the strength that the price of the car was Dhs85,000 and the Murabaha expenses and fees amounted to Dhs8,628.

The plaintiff also requested the court to obligated the defendant to pay a compensation of Dhs10,000 for the harms he had befallen plus the incurred fees and expenses.

The plaintiff pleaded that he saw a car sale ad on social media, where it was stated that the distance travelled by the car did not exceed 13,000km and that the car was under the agency warranty. He was also sent pictures of the odometer and inspection reports indicating the same reading, he added.

A sale agreement was made and the price was paid through car financing with a UAE bank, he said.

Later, however, when the car was inspected at its official agent, it became clear that its odometer had been tampered with, as the car travelled a distance of 148,940km but the odometer was then reset to 12,858km, he added, noting that this constituted a hidden essential defect and fraud that would justify the termination of the contract.

The supervising judge appointed a specialized expert, whose final report showed that the car’s odometer reading had been tampered with, a latent defect that could not be detected by a normal buyer through visual inspection or ordinary means.

The report also showed that the defect had existed before the sale contract was concluded, that the contract was based on incorrect operational data and that there was no evidence that the plaintiff was aware of or accepted the defect at the time of the contract.

According to the report, the defect was technically irreparable, as it was documented in the local dealer’s database, and the depreciation in the car market was estimated at Dhs25,000.

Accordingly, the court adopted the expert’s report as an integral part of its verdict and decided that the sale contract be revoked, the defective car be returned to the seller and the Dhs85,000 paid as the price of the car be recovered.

The court explained that it was established from the documents that the plaintiff suffered material and moral harms, represented by the expenses paid to register the car, finance its purchase and pay for the legal procedures to recover the amounts paid, over and above the moral harms represented by the feeling of anxiety.

The defendant is thereby legally obligated to compensate the plaintiff for those harms and the court estimates the compensation due to him at Dhs10,000.