other than defects that will fail the car at safety inspection, you are not liable for anything
Here is the problem with your situation.
Change of Ownership
An emissions test is required when a vehicle is sold or the ownership changes. The seller is responsible for obtaining the test. This requirement is a consumer protection, and applies to private party vehicle sales as well as to dealers.
This info comes straight from the site you posted. Colorado law says nothing about you purchasing a car from a private party and going to get it inspected. It states the seller is responsible for obtaining the certificate. You do not buy the car unless the seller has a current certificate in hand. If you chose to buy this vehicle when the seller could not produce a current certificate that is your fault. I hate to sound harsh but the fact is you were well aware of the laws when you bought this vehicle. If you were not thats your fault.
~Michael (dartman69 logged out yet again)
I’m in Oklahoma.(and many times wished I was not.)
I read the statement on the site and the statement is pretty short.
What I’m pondering is if the statement only applies if the seller resides in an emission testing county. From that simple statement there is no way for me to be sure.
Politicians being what they are, the law as written has to be a lot more involved than a one sentence statement.
Based on the law I am suprised they won in court at all. The law says:
Change of Ownership
Used vehicles that are for sale are required to have a new emissions test, even if the current inspection report still has time on it.
It is the seller’s responsibility to obtain the test. This is a consumer protection for the buyer. The seller must provide the emissions test paperwork to the buyer for vehicle registration purposes. The buyer must use this paperwork to register the vehicle within 120 days (emissions test paperwork that is not used for vehicle registration purposes expires in 120 days). A vehicle dealer may offer customers a voucher enabling the buyer to obtain a test for free. The customer has the right to refuse this arrangement.
My take is the inspection needs to be done before the vehicle is put up for sale. Not by the buyer after the fact.
~Michael (dartman69 can not stay logged in)
We have dealt with this long enough to tell you it doesnt matter where the seller lives; he is still responsible for the emissions test and yes that includes if he is anywhere in the state. That is how the law is written and maybe it doesnt make sense but that is how our legislature set it up.
This also works in areas that are side by side (emmissions and non) so there are some benefits here to having the law set up this way.
Second; yes it says the seller is responsible but the seller doesnt want to pay the $25 so the buyer usually does and yes we were naive at the time; so we trusted the seller and when we found out 5 months later; we got mad; sent a certified letter to the seller and then he dragged it on for 2 years in court just to get out of being fair to us and paying for the repairs including the emissions ones which he was legally responsbile to pay.
Very hard lesson to learn.
Well, after looking at the law as it is written in legalese, and unless I read it wrong, I don’t know if you have (had) a case.
Title 42 Article 4 Part 3
42-4-310
Paragraph 4
It states (in a nutshell) that an inoperable vehicle or one that will not pass emissions testing may be sold to the purchaser as is and it is the purchaser’s responsibility to have the testing performed.
You didnt read it fully like we have. Please check your facts AND READ all segments of the law.
The car could have been sold for parts and listed that way on the bill of sale
SELLING FOR PARTS ONLY
to someone who lives in the emissions areas of CO but then the car wouldnt have bene worth full price which is what the seller got.
If you got your copy of the CRS off the internet; you didnt read the whole section so please dont post incorrect facts. The last thing we need is someone who doesnt even live in CO; telling Coloradoans wrong information and then have them experience the same hell we went through from numerous trips to the repair shops; to the emissions stations; to the health dept who tests car for free on the other side of Denver to the State DMV in Lakewood which is also on the other side of Denver for over 2 years (and lets not forget the numerous trips to the courthouse which is either 3 hours by bus one way or 20 minutes if you have a car.)
For those who may be interested, see if you read it the same way I do.
http://www.revenue.state.co.us/dlr/pdfs/statreg.pdf
Starts at the bottom of page 52.
It states that any car sold is required to pass emissions inspection: SUBJECT (their word, not mine) to paragraph 4, which makes a big difference in the first statement.
Since you seem to be quite the jailhouse lawyer, then your job is far from over. The Colorado Court of Appeals, followed by the Colorado State Supreme Court, followed by the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals (conveniently located right there in Denver) and the U.S. Supreme Court as the final stop.
If you lose at the last one I don’t know what to tell you.
Instead of whining and spending a fortune on legal bills, bus tickets, and blaming the world, how about buy a new car and be done with it.
You claim to have lost a 150 grand; well, you can buy a new Hyundai for 15k. It has a warranty and passes emissions.
(where’s the smilies when you need them)
We didnt spend a dime on legal fees. We trusted the law and the court that we would win since we had proof in hand from the DMV on the 3 prior failed tests. Two of which were done by the seller and one of whihc was done by the prior seller to that. We also had proof from our emissions test centre with the Health dept that the car failed when the car was sold to us. What we gambled and lost on was the rotten Judge.
It takes money to buy a car. When you spend all your money repairing a car; you expect it to last. You dont expect to find out later after all this money was spent; gee you cant register the car as the car wont pass the emissions and gee there are still more problems with the car and you just spent over $3500 on a car that isnt going to last. Then you have to file a court case and with our budget cuts; it took months to get a case; then we couldnt get accommodation due to our disabiltiy so how were we to handle the case in court when we cant talk?
Meanwhile the car was our only means of support and then she dies and this case is still not settled. We have to wait to see if Justice is going to get involved since Doug county didnt want to abide by the ADA and then Justice didnt want to get involved; then with the car dead we had no way to even get to Doug county as we didnt have friends who could take us (many trips to court too)
The seller and the county took 2 years to hear this case and our financial situation went down hill from there and we still couldnt get the case heard. The Judge didnt care one iota.
Its very easy for you to talk about just buy another car when its pretty clear we couldnt do that. How do you even get a loan to buy a car when you are asked what do you do and you say delivery and then you are asked how do you do that without a car?
If you are so sure of yourself on CO law when you dont even live here; why dont you come and lobby our lawmakers to fix this loophole. We have seen the CRS at our library; talked to numerous state employees and also our lawmakers on this and its very tough to get them to fix this loophole. The session starts in early January. By the way we want it done retroactively so we can go back to court for a fair settlement.
By the way by the time we had a verdict in this case we had about 3 bucks in our pocket. Not enough to even take the bus to go back to the court house since the judge didnt give us a verdict straightaway; not enough to even file the papers even if the judge waived the appeal fees so how could we file the appeal? We couldnt. The judge saw to that because she knew we would have raised cane in her courtroom due to us getting very upset when she delayed this case before if she gave us a verdict right then and there so she waited 2 weeks and then we had no money to come back to the court to file anything.
Again you are talking about what you know nothing about and making us very upset in the process.
So why don’t you tell me what you think the bottom of page 52/top of 53 means?
You’re acting like I’m the one making up CO law and posting it as I go along when I’m only providing a link to the as-written regulations that I had no part in writing.
Does it or does it not say that a parts car or car that will not pass regulations will be left up to the purchaser to inspect?
If you say there is a loophole (your words, not mine) then obviously you do not have the law on your side and are incorrect.
You bought a used car, as is, pig in a poke, and sometimes they can be trouble prone.
This all falls back on you. You should have had a thorough inspection done BEFORE buying the car and you should have also made sure it was emissions compliant; again, BEFORE buying the car.
Your personal troubles, the ADA act, bus tickets, and anything else is irrelevant.
Everybody has problems in life and I would sure trade you a few of mine.
(Also, I know exactly what has been going on here; this type of thing is nothing new in the auto world.)
wink, wink.
I think you’ll find that the courts often will not award consequential damages in this type of case. You could have rented a car during the time in question and still went to work. This would have significantly limited the loss and is not something that would have been overly burdensome. There are a number of concievable remedies for transportation that could be considered, this is just one example. Denver has good public transportation as well.
Would you care to tell us how we can make door to door deliveries on RTD? How we pick up our deliveries via RTD?
It also costs money to rent a car and when you need a larger size vehicle thats going to be very pricy to rent and then there is insurance; then you need to figure out if it costs this much to rent and you earn this much; is it worth it?
Dont know what you are refering to on top of page 52 / 53 but we do know that a car cant be sold AS IS to someone who lives in the emisisons area. If someone wants to part out a car; they can but it must be listed as parts only on bill of sale. This was not done this way.
We have lived in CO for 20 years so we are familair with selling and buying a car. What we arent familiar with is the deviousness of what people will do just to sell a car that isnt worth spit.
The law is very clear as we have said many times already. You cant repeat CANT sell a car AS IS to someone who lives in the emisisons areas of CO and who can only register the car in the emissions area when the car fails the emissions since the person isnt going to be able to register the car.
You have to have 2 things to register a car in CO in the emisisons area. One is proof of insurance and the second is a passing emissions test. If you dont have both; they can give you a temp tag for 2 months and it can be renewed. If you still dont have a passing test in 4 motnhs; you have to go to the state DMV office in Lakewood for any more temp tags and they are going to ask you a ton of questions before you get a third temp tag.
If a seller wants to sell a car to a buyer; he still is repsonsible for the emissions test unless he is prepared to put on the bill of sale; selling for parts only so then he is not responsbile for the emisisons test. He is not repsonsible for anything at that point since he is clearly telling the buyer; he doesnt know if the car runs; passes the tests; etc. That didnt happen in our case.
The seller broke the law. The buyer was severely harmed so why is it the courts wont award some amount for damages to a buyer who did nothing wrong? especially when the car is used for work? especially when there was alot of hassles since the seller knowingly sold a car they didnt have a right to sell AS IS?
I provided a link for anyone to read and I did NOT state the top of Page 52. I said the BOTTOM of page 52 and the TOP of page 53, along with asking for anyone else’s intrepretation of those few paragraphs.
Did you even attempt to pull it up and read it?
Since you’ve “lived in CO for 20 years and know all about buying and selling cars” then I would ask how you bungled into this one so badly.
You have also stated that you were awarded damages. The complaint from my vantage point is that you’re mad over not getting “extra”.
If your tone in court was anything like the tone of your posts I’m surprised the judge gave you anything.
Judges want it short, simple, and sweet with no rambling.
As I mentioned, if there is a “loophole” (your word) then it sounds like someone took advantage of the law as it is written.
Are you talking about pages in the CRS? No we dont know what they say exactly since its been a while since we read them. If you are; we will go to our library and find a copy to read them; again. Just to clarify what you are trying to confuse people about.
Second; we got an award of $1500 which was less then the purchase price; didnt include $240 in court costs; didnt include $375 in emissions repairs; didnt include anything in the way of damages and it took 2 years plus to get it. Now most judges are going to add court costs on top of the award; this one didnt. It clearly states the seller is repsonsbile for fixing the car if it doesnt pass the emissions before he sold it; yet this one didnt make any repairs before he sold it and we paid for the emissions repairs before we knew the car had these problems before it was sold to us. Again the law is clear so how is it we didnt even get the emissions repairs that we made reimbursed?
Now those of you who are so knowledgable about cars; tell us how we can buy a reliable ; large enough car (at least a 4 door sedan) for door to door deliveries; prefer only a Honda or Toyota; with $1500 and dont forget we have to pay for insurance which is higher for deliveries even with a perfect driving record and lets not forget we have no reserves if the car breaks down either. We cant and that is why we are upset and have been upset since this started.
We cant and we cant get back to work until we could afford to buy a car which was more then 3 months after this case ended.
NO we werent like this in court but we do get upset when we cant even get accomodation as we are mute and cant even get a fair hearing due to nonsense by the courts / Judges and we are going back and forth to court for no hearings for 2 years.
How many of you can conduct a hearing when you cant speak? without any accomodation though federal law tells the court to provide it without charge to us?
The only loophole in the law is it fails to provide specific damages to the buyer of cars that are sold to them with prior failed emissions. It leaves it up to the judge and in this case the judge screwed the victim even further.
It seems to me that you want to blame all your problems on others when in all actuality it is your fault. You want to claim you are protected by the law but you don’t want to obey the law. The law according to your own link states: THE SELLER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OBTAINING THE INSPECTION CERTIFICATE. The only deviation from this fact is a vehicle dealer can give the buyer a certificate to get an inspection but the buyer can refuse.
All you had to do to eliviate this entire problem was to follow the law and have the seller get a valid inspection. You decided to get it yourself. You could not get one so you went to court for satisfaction. If I was the judge I would have thrown the case out of court based on the law you provided so you only have yourself to blame.
~Michael (dartman69)
You bought a used vehicle, obviously without any inspection, no mechanical abilities of your own, and failed to ask one God Blessed question beforehand.
You paid the price for your lack of foresight.
I’m bowing completely out of this as of now so as we say around the lab here; osmosis amoeba.
We went to your page 52 / 53 and its part of our CRS, the CO Revised Statues as we asked you to tell us if this was the case.
It says excatly what we are telling you it said.
if a vehicle being sold is inoperable or unable to be tested; the seller must provide in writing the following to the buyer:
-
Car does not currently comply with the emissions programs
-
Seller doesnt warrant the car will comply with the emmision standards.
-
Buyer is responible for getting the emissions.
Then it goes on to say that the department meaning the CO Dept of Revenue will come up with a form to provide to dealers and people who wish to sell cars this way.
It further goes on to say that if a vehcile is exempted from the program; the buyer is responabile for complying with the program before a car is registered.
Now we have just given you a short version of this and we have clearly told you this didnt happen in our car and you are still ragging on us for being stupid.
This very clearly states the seller is responsbile for the emisisons unless he wants to sell the car for parts / stating its inoperable. This is the same thing we have been stating for many posts. The seller in our case broke the law when he stated the car is sold AS IS. That implies the car is going to pass the emisisons test as that is the law since the car isnt being sold for parts; we can expect the car to pass the emissions test when we take it. That didnt happen in our case as there were 3 prior failed tests with 2 being when the car was in the sellers possession. That is also what the Judge came up with when we got our verdict.
Now why wasnt that clear to you? 42-4-310 has been on our books since 1994 and it replaces other laws. It is the same one we have been telling you about but you dont beleive us for some strange reason so you looked it up and then paraphased it to confuse alot of people.
And please dont tell us AS IS is the same as selling a car for parts if that is your next argument because its not and we doubt anyone is going to say it is.
Now we hope you are through misquoting our law and confusing people as to someone from OK is going to know the law better than someone who lives in CO for 20 years. Yes we did something stupid but we certainly shouldnt have to pay with it to the tune of in excess of $150,000 and counting still while the seller gets away with breaking a well and long established law just so he could make a few / a very few extra dollars!!!
Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You want the seller to be punished for breaking the law but you want to accept no responsibility yourself.
Did you ever get the vehicle to pass an emmision inspection? How much did that cost? The $375.00 you have mentioned throughout your rant.
~Michael