Abu Dhabi court orders man to pay Dhs24,500 to another for deliberately selling faulty vehicle

Abu Dhabi Family, Civil and Administrative Cases Court obligated a man to pay Dhs24,500 to another man after he sold him a car that was found to be broken down the following day.

After being examined, the car was found to have been submerged before and that all its internal parts were rusty.

Earlier, a car buyer filed a lawsuit against the car seller in which he requested the court to obligate him to annul the car sale contract and pay him the sale amount of Dhs24,500 plus Dhs3,500 for repairs.

He also requested the court to obligate the defendant to pay the incurred fees and expenses.

The plaintiff pleaded that following visual inspection, he bought the defendant’s car for Dhs24,500 but he was surprised the following day that the car broke down, adding that upon inspection, he discovered that the car had been submerged before, that all its internal parts were suffering from rust and that the cost of repair was estimated at Dhs19,000.

If he had been aware of those hidden defects that the seller deliberately did not disclose at the time of purchase, he would not have completed the purchase of the car, the plaintiff said.

As he repeatedly demanded that the defendant return the price of the car and cancel the purchase contract to no avail, he was prompted to file the present lawsuit seeking a judgment in his favour.

The court appointed a specialized expert to examine the matter and his report concluded that the car had been submerged before the sale, leaving traces of rust and corrosion on its internal parts, a defect that could not be detected and would expose the car to further future malfunctions. The report also noted that the value of the car was less than that stated in the sales contract concluded between the disputing parties.

Based on the expert’s report, which concluded that the car had hidden defects that could not be discovered by the usual and common examination and required special expertise, the burden of proof should hereby shift to the seller to provide evidence of the buyer’s knowledge of these defects in order to be exempted from the warranty, the court said.

As he failed to do so and instead claimed that he did not know about these defects, the court believed that annulling the sales contract and refunding the price to the plaintiff was in accordance with the law.