Deposit

[jfm]

Again you use the word IF to justify your assumption. I agree with you IF what the OP has told us is true and complete then a contract existed and there has been a Breach but there is another interpretation that is equally valid and also made on an assumption.

I have in the past a modest involvement in contract law both personally occasionally referred to on here but also professionally in constructing them and scrutinising them with and or prior to submission to a contract specialist lawyer ( mainly supply and purchase contracts)

There is no assumption anywhere in Tranona's post nor any justification of one. You can't be referring to Tranona's first "if" so I guess you're referring to his "if it is true." That's not an assumption; it's a qualification, rarely needing to be written on here because it would be otiose 99.99% of the time. but appropriate in the case of this particular OP (which is why Tranona wrote it.)

Not sure what your second paragraph is for. Just writing something like that isn't gonna convince anyone who knows their onions that you know yours.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

There is no assumption anywhere in Tranona's post nor any justification of one. You can't be referring to Tranona's first "if" so I guess you're referring to his "if it is true." That's not an assumption; it's a qualification, rarely needing to be written on here because it would be otiose 99.99% of the time. but appropriate in the case of this particular OP (which is why Tranona wrote it.)

Not sure what your second paragraph is for. Just writing something like that isn't gonna convince anyone who knows their onions that you know yours.

Qualification or assumption in this case I would deem them to be the same thing because he uses it as the basis for his hypothesis which is meaningless without it.

I admit that I am no contract lawyer but as you well know my position is nothing to do with was there a contract made or not but should the "transaction" be investigated or not and by whom. Your position leaving out that because of the amount and nature it should not like Tranona's is that because there is a contract it is a purely civil mater to be adjudicated by civil law. My assumption is that it is a matter for criminal law because I qualify it by assuming a criminal offence may have been committed. If it is found that it has not then civil proceedings can take over. The problem is no-one knows the full story so assumptions or qualifications to justify them have been made.

 

[jfm]

Qualification or assumption in this case I would deem them to be the same thing

My assumption is that it is a matter for criminal law because I qualify it by assuming a criminal offence may have been committed.

This is comedy gold .

1. Deem away. They're very different things, but you go right ahead and deem them to be the same thing, if you want.

2. Well if you assume a criminal offence has been committed then you're good to go in assuming it's a matter for criminal law

I think this has been done to death (and more!)

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Perhaps you could answer one point for me please.

If there was criminal intent to defraud people of their deposits by the seller in the conversation as we understand it to have taken place, "pay the £500 and the boat is yours" which is all we know. Was a contract made and could it be enforced if there was no intent to sell.

 

[Tranona]

Woods and Trees come to mind.

How can a really simple question generate 180 posts?

It seems that many cannot cope with simplicity, maybe because it does not fit their experience, so are hell bent on adding in complexity to make it more "real".

Of course it will almost certainly be more complex, but there is nothing from the OP to indicate what those complexities are so they get invented. Some of the inventions may turn out to be relevant but many are just too far fetched to even consider.

 

[Tranona]

Perhaps you could answer one point for me please.

If there was criminal intent to defraud people of their deposits by the seller in the conversation as we understand it to have taken place, "pay the £500 and the boat is yours" which is all we know. Was a contract made and could it be enforced if there was no intent to sell.

More inventions. Why do you want to bring in a criminal act when there is nothing from the OP to suggest that.

Stop digging.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

More inventions. Why do you want to bring in a criminal act when there is nothing from the OP to suggest that.

Stop digging.

FFS
There are two possibilities for this:
Yours that there was an unfulfilled contract
Mine that in common with many other such Facebook Market Place advertisements it was a scam.

There is insufficient evidence to conclusively confirm either so it is valid to discuss both.

 

[Tranona]

FFS
There are two possibilities for this:
Yours that there was an unfulfilled contract
Mine that in common with many other such Facebook Market Place advertisements it was a scam.

There is insufficient evidence to conclusively confirm either so it is valid to discuss both.

But yours you have just made up and mine which is a direct reflection of what the OP says and does have evidence to support it (if what he says is true). Note that is a CONDITION - the advice is only correct for the circumstances he gave.

I can imagine all sorts of different scenarios like you and other posters here but they are no help to the OP who just wanted to know what his rights were. You are falling onto the trap I described - bringing in your belief that Facebook ads are scams because you think that is more real. Maybe they and maybe not, but the OP is not claiming he has been scammed. His rights are the same whether it is a "scam" or not. Hardly surprising he gave up.

 

[jfm]

Perhaps you could answer one point for me please.

If there was criminal intent to defraud people of their deposits by the seller in the conversation as we understand it to have taken place, "pay the £500 and the boat is yours" which is all we know. Was a contract made and could it be enforced if there was no intent to sell.

You're asking a quite precise legal question yet have not even formed your first sentence correctly. I'm going to guess that you meant to put a comma after "know".

Everything I'm writing is based only on what OP reported, not on anything surmised/hypothesised by other posters.

If there was no criminal intent (and there isn't much evidence of any) then yes a contract was formed. Your question, I think, and paraphrasing, is this: if there was criminal intent does that cause a contract not to have been formed, when otherwise it would have been? In other words, does criminal intent interfere with a contract coming into existence?

Short answer to your Q is emphatically yes a contract was made and yes it is enforceable (at least in principle; OP might not even be able to find the guy...)

Long answer is this:
(a) As a general point, and this isn't an answer to the question but worth jotting down, there is no general law against having criminal intent/having the intention to defraud. That's in the UK - those laws do exist in other countries. There are specific laws such as being equipped to steal and being equipped to commit fraud but those are not laws specifically punishing the having of an intent even if they somewhat serve that purpose in practice. There are laws against conspiracy (which is an intent or agreement-to offence) but you need two people because you can't conspire with yourself, and the public policy purpose of conspiracy law is arguably different from punishing people just for having intent (but that's another story).

(b) As to your contract law questions,

• having intent to defraud does not generally cause a contract not to be formed.
• The only rabbit hole one might (briefly) explore to say there was no contract is to say that a necessary ingredient of a (UK) contract was missing, namely the "intention to be legally bound" ingredient,
• The law makes a rebuttable presumption that this ingredient existed, so seller would need to prove it didn't.
• Seller would then be arguing that a contract didn't exist by reason of him having criminal intent, and since his intent turned into reality he would then be admitting to a crime.
• Furthermore the corollary of his (hypothetically) winning a "not legally bound" argument is that he is then constructive trustee of the £500 and is then committing further fraud and theft offences in not handing it back.
• Seller would therefore have stupidly turning a civil matter into a criminal matter = shoot/self/foot.
• In any case, having made all those admissions, he would still not win the contract law point he was arguing: the correct UK legal analysis is that seller did intend to be legally bound in the eyes of the law. Maybe he intended subsequently not to honour the contract but that doesn't go to the existence of the contract.

Remember please this is all hypothetical. I don't see any intent to defraud or actual fraud at all, from what OP has reported. I'm with Tranona on that. So I'm only answering your question out of politeness because you asked it, not because I share your premise.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

You're asking a quite precise legal question yet have not even formed your first sentence correctly. I'm going to guess that you meant to put a comma after "know".

Everything I'm writing is based only on what OP reported, not on anything surmised/hypothesised by other posters.

If there was no criminal intent (and there isn't much evidence of any) then yes a contract was formed. Your question, I think, and paraphrasing, is this: if there was criminal intent does that cause a contract not to have been formed, when otherwise it would have been? In other words, does criminal intent interfere with a contract coming into existence?

Short answer to your Q is emphatically yes a contract was made and yes it is enforceable (at least in principle; OP might not even be able to find the guy...)

Long answer is this:
(a) As a general point, and this isn't an answer to the question but worth jotting down, there is no general law against having criminal intent/having the intention to defraud. That's in the UK - those laws do exist in other countries. There are specific laws such as being equipped to steal and being equipped to commit fraud but those are not laws specifically punishing the having of an intent even if they somewhat serve that purpose in practice. There are laws against conspiracy (which is an intent or agreement-to offence) but you need two people because you can't conspire with yourself, and the public policy purpose of conspiracy law is arguably different from punishing people just for having intent (but that's another story).

(b) As to your contract law questions,

• having intent to defraud does not generally cause a contract not to be formed.
• The only rabbit hole one might (briefly) explore to say there was no contract is to say that a necessary ingredient of a (UK) contract was missing, namely the "intention to be legally bound" ingredient,
• The law makes a rebuttable presumption that this ingredient existed, so seller would need to prove it didn't.
• Seller would then be arguing that a contract didn't exist by reason of him having criminal intent, and since his intent turned into reality he would then be admitting to a crime.
• Furthermore the corollary of his (hypothetically) winning a "not legally bound" argument is that he is then constructive trustee of the £500 and is then committing further fraud and theft offences in not handing it back.
• Seller would therefore have stupidly turning a civil matter into a criminal matter = shoot/self/foot.
• In any case, having made all those admissions, he would still not win the contract law point he was arguing: the correct UK legal analysis is that seller did intend to be legally bound in the eyes of the law. Maybe he intended subsequently not to honour the contract but that doesn't go to the existence of the contract.

Remember please this is all hypothetical. I don't see any intent to defraud or actual fraud at all, from what OP has reported. I'm with Tranona on that. So I'm only answering your question out of politeness because you asked it, not because I share your premise.

Thank you for your comprehensive answer.

You should note that I only think it plausible that there was intent to defraud ie it was a scam, that is not to say there was so I think it would be worth establishing before there was any persuit of the money under the basis of unfulfilled contract. ( would that be the basis you would advocate?) It's a question of how one would do that and it brings us back to the police and on reflection I think they would be justified in asking for some evidence and or detail that supports that claim. That could be difficult for the buyer unless he can find others that have suffered similarly as there can be no corroboration of the details or terms of a verbal contract other than the statements of the two parties or perhaps the wording of the advertisement. In this case it would have to go to a small claims court with the recorder or circuit judge having to make the judgement of Solomon. I wonder how that would pan out.

 

[jfm]

... intent to defraud ie it was a scam, ... it would be worth establishing ... ( would that be the basis you would advocate?)

No I wouldn't, because it is impossible to establish that, as you pretty much admit in your next sentence. We know the seller owned the boat and that it existed, and that he advertised if for sale, so there are no scam hallmarks there. The scam/fraud angle is all supposition by some posters on here, which isn't supported by the facts given by OP, but let's agree to disagree about that. I also think it's a waste of police time for them to be brought into this - again we can agree to disagree.

Happy for others to have last words but please can this thread just die then?

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Sorry my poor prose again! what I meant on what basis would you have suggested to pursue the lost £500, unfulfilled contract or something else.

 

[jfm]

Sorry my poor prose again! what I meant ...

I've lost the will to live on this. You apologise for an unclear/inarticulate post by writing another.

 

[Alicatt]

Caveat venditor "Facebook Marketplace" Caveat Emptor

Selling something on Facebook Marketplace can be just as frustrating as trying to buy something, the scammers and time wasters are at it on both sides of a potential transaction.

 

[benjenbav]

Sorry my poor prose again! what I meant on what basis would you have suggested to pursue the lost £500, unfulfilled contract or something else.

Apart from other issues that have been discussed extensively in the thread above, the nature of a crime is that it is an offence against society, not against an individual.

If the OP felt they had been the victim of a fraud or what might loosely be called a theft offence they can tell the police. Whether the police do anything about the complaint would be for the police to decide. Resources, quality of information and other factors would come into that decision.

The OP could theoretically pursue a remedy in tort, probably the tort of conversion, very broadly speaking the misappropriation of goods, a sort of civil theft. This would be expensive, time consuming and would potentially be undermined were the police and CPS to see insufficient criminality to prosecute a case.

Or the OP could look at the breach of contract case as outlined by jfm, Tranona and probably others. Small claims track etc.

 

[Irish Rover]

If there was any value in any of the advice offered on this thread it is well hidden now, or maybe drowned by the full flow pissing competition. Time to put it back in your trousers, boys.

 

[Elessar]

I've lost the will to live on this. You apologise for an unclear/inarticulate post by writing another.

Don’t know how you lasted this long but anyway you are completely missing the point.

The boat in question had a CQR anchor and the bloke who received the £500 had a Nissan leaf.

 

[ari]

We know the seller owned the boat and that it existed, and that he advertised if for sale, so there are no scam hallmarks there.

We know that A boat existed and that the person on the phone claimed to own it, that's all.

The buyer only spoke to him on the phone and never met him or saw the boat. He claims that he 'rang Hartlepool docks to check it was genuine' but there's no way they would have given out the owner's personal information so that seems unlikely. At best they might have confirmed that 'yes we have a boat called Searider 1 (or whatever) here'.

So it might have been a genuine owner, but we don't know that, and nor does the OP.

I would suggest that it is far more likely to be a scammer who's seen a boat called Searider 1 (or whatever) for sale in Hartlepool Docks on one website, taken the details and photos, listed it on another website for a bargain price and is harvesting deposits from gullible would-be buyers who think they're getting a bargain, as long as they're quick ('Lot of interest, but give me a £500 deposit and it's all yours mate'). It's a very common scam.

You can, of course, argue that I'm surmising, but no more so than 'we know the seller owned the boat'.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

We know that A boat existed and that the person on the phone claimed to own it, that's all.

The buyer only spoke to him on the phone and never met him or saw the boat. He claims that he 'rang Hartlepool docks to check it was genuine' but there's no way they would have given out the owner's personal information so that seems unlikely. At best they might have confirmed that 'yes we have a boat called Searider 1 (or whatever) here'.

So it might have been a genuine owner, but we don't know that, and nor does the OP.

I would suggest that it is far more likely to be a scammer who's seen a boat called Searider 1 (or whatever) for sale in Hartlepool Docks on one website, taken the details and photos, listed it on another website for a bargain price and is harvesting deposits from gullible would-be buyers who think they're getting a bargain, as long as they're quick ('Lot of interest, but give me a £500 deposit and it's all yours mate'). It's a very common scam.

You can, of course, argue that I'm surmising, but no more so than 'we know the seller owned the boat'.

That's the problem with these scams and Facebook Marketplace seems rife with them. The police won't be interested, the banks won't be interested, so very little chance of getting your money back and people might just write it off.

 

[Irish Rover]

Hans Christian Andersen is waiting for his membership of YBW to be approved so he can post on this thread.