Mombasa Car Deals: Your property or asset will no longer be auctioned or repossessed if you have paid more than seventy five per cent. This is according to a court ruling in which a car dealer, Fahari Cars Ltd, has been ordered to refund a woman whose vehicle they had repossessed. The woman who had paid more than 75 percent will also get an additional Sh. 400,000 in general damages.
Apparently, in 2017, the woman who was identified as Gladys Karimi bought a car in Mombasa through a car dealer loan. She signed a document without reading the fine print, which stated that the dealer would repossess, the car without notice if she defaulted on her payments. The also ruled that the dealer did not comply with Consumer Protection Act, 2012. This exposed Gladys to potential loss of money. Gladys bought a vehicle worth Sh. 3.5 million. She paid Sh. 2 million upfront, leaving a balance of Sh. 1.5 million. They agreed that the balance would be paid in 10 equal monthly installments of Sh. 155,300.
However, Gladys told the court that after driving to Kiambu, she was constantly harassed by traffic police, who constantly questioned the validity of the vehicle’s documents which was a 2009 model. “I had intended to buy a 2010 model but what was delivered to me was a 2009 one,” she said. “I was constantly being stopped by the police with inquiries about the authenticity of the documents and the vehicle’s number plate. I became apprehensive that I had got a raw deal.”
A report on the matter that appeared in the local dailies said that tired of police harassment, Gladys stopped paying the monthly installments and sought clarification from Tricky Nzaka and Muhammad Imran, who had sold her the vehicle.
“She did not get any help, as the sellers were uncooperative. She then decided to travel to Mombasa to sort out the problem. But before she could travel, she was accosted by Express Agency Auctioneers in Kiambu and the vehicle was repossessed and sold off by public auction. This happened on December 6, 2017, about eleven months after she bought the vehicle. She had already paid Sh. 2.7 million and had a balance of Sh. 776,100,” one of the reports said. Anger by the repossession, Gladys sued Fahari Cars and the auctioneer in a Mombasa court. She demanded a refund and an additional Sh. 500,000 in exemplary and punitive damages. She said the vehicle had been sold to third parties and she could not get it back.
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Gladys also told the court that she had been duped and sold the wrong vehicle model, contrary to what had been agreed to on paper. “I tried to sort out these issues with the sellers but to no avail,” she said.
