I bought a used car at a dealership for 259000.00 on October 2022. On October 2024 my son got involved in an accident and i discover the car did not release airbags. i got worried as someone told me it looks the car was once involved in an accident before i buy it. I appointed the assessor who confirm that the car was once involved in an accident. Further investigation revealed that the car was sold at an auction by an insurance company since it was a write off. I approached the dealer and they agreed but say they were not aware that the car was a rebuild when it was sold to them. I told them I want all the monies i payed for the car which was 322 000.00 and compensation for the suffering that since they have put my family as risk for selling us a car with no safety features. I told them i need 1 500 000.00 for that. The offered me 200 000 (which i refused to accept) for selling me a defective vehicle and say i must go to RAF for injuries of the accident. I want to pursue a civil claim against them for the fraud they did to myself and the suffering we suffered as a family.

My son is the one who was driving the car. He got his elbow broken and has to be operated, and also had some scratches on the face where he was stiched. I believe if the car has airbags the injuries would have been minimised. I believe there was lot of corruption as how did they register the car at the Traffic as a normal car. My suspicion tells me they are the ones who bought the vehicle at the auction and rebuild it but did not inform the constumer.

Hi there and thank you for your question,

I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.

Please keep in mind that our discussions is for general information purposes only. Our engagement on this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. 

There is (legally speaking) absolutely nothing wrong with somebody buying a vehicle which has been involved in an accident and then repairing the vehicle, and then selling it to somebody else. The vehicle was probably sold to the dealer after it had been repaired, and the dealer is probably 100% correct in saying that they never knew that it had been in an accident before. If the dealer never knew about the accident, then they could not have told you about it. 

If the dealer didn't make any material misrepresentation to you about the quality of the vehicle, you are unfortunately not going to be able to cancel the sale agreement and get your money back. You won't even be entitled to compensation. 

The only way that you would be entitled to cancel the sale is if the dealer KNEW about the accident, AND you specifically asked the dealer if the vehicle had been in an accident and the dealer LIED to you and said "No". 

But this is not what happened. 

If the dealer offered you R200k, then there is a possibility that they knew that the vehicle was previously in an accident and didn't tell you. Maybe this is why they are feeling like they have to offer you something. 

But even if they knew, that in itself is not wrong. 

They had to have lied to you about the accident, and you had to have asked about it. 

If you never asked, there is no legal duty on them to inform you about the accident. 

Based on what you've explained, I don't see any fraud. The only thing that there is a possibility of is fraudulent misrepresentation, but like I said, they had to have known about the accident and you had to have actually asked the question! 

Even if they bought the vehicle, and fixed it up, there still wouldn't have been any legal duty on them to inform you about the previous accident damage. 

Your son would have a claim against the RAF for his damages. But if you have medical aid I would suggest rather going that route instead of the RAF. 

I feel that you believe that they were obliged to inform you about the fact that the vehicle was previously in an accident and had since been repaired, and you feel that them keeping this information from you constitutes fraud. But I'm afraid that this is not how the law works.