Seller liability and pre-owned merchandise malfunction The below is 100% hypothetical. No event has occurred. Any reply I receive is not legal advice and I will consult a lawyer if I were to ever need appropriate legal advice. Let's say I own some baby items that my baby has outgrown, but have remaining useful life. Eg: An expensive bassinet. I own the bassinet, and it has been used properly. I then sell the bassinet noting that the prospective buyer is buying &quot;as-is&quot; but the item has been reasonably inspected (to the best of my lay ability) and appears to be in proper working condition and is &quot;like-new&quot;. Someone else buys that bassinet and, while the baby is in the bassinet, the baby dies. The. cause of death is SIDS
By definition, when a death is diagnosed as an instance of SIDS, the actual cause of death is not known. (If the cause is known or is determined by autopsy, the diagnosis is not SIDS.) Thus there can be no proof that the bassinet was the cause, or even a contributing factor, in the death, and therefore the seller of the bassinet should have no liability. If there was some other cause of death that was due to the condition of the bassinet, there could possibly be liability. For example, say the bassinet broke suddenly, causing the baby to fall and death resulted. But here I think ther could be liability only if the seller knew (or suspected) that the bassinet was in an unsafe condition, or if a reasonable person in the seller's position would have known or suspected this, or possibly if the seller made knowingly false statements about the condition which made the bassinet seem safer than it in fact was. None of these matches the situation described in the question. However, in many jurisdictions there are laws specifically forbidding the sale of used mattresses, adult or infant, regardless of their detailed condition or how they are described. In such a jurisdiction the seller could not lawfully include the mattress as part of the sale. With a new mattress it would be even harder to link the seller to any SIDS case, as any risk factor from an overly-soft mattress would not be the seller's responsibility.
I emailed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the USA asking this and received the reply: "There is nothing to prevent you from marketing antiques in the UK while present in the US." I also contacted a relevant US attorney and received: "There’s nothing in your question which would implicate Colorado or US law. If you're a UK citizen, and the sale is happening in the UK while you're in the US, then the US has anything to do with it. So as long as the UK doesn’t have any problem with it, the US will not." So I would conclude this question fairly answered.
Don't trivialize this because it appears to be minor and inexpensive. If something goes wrong, you could be liable for damage. You should have an idea of what a reasonable cost should be based on the rent and condition of the property. Discuss it with the landlord. If the landlord chooses to fix it, you should have something in writing, signed by both you and the landlord, acknowledging that you aren't responsible for reimbursing the landlord for the cost or acknowledging receipt by the landlord of any contribution from you and a statement that the contribution fulfills your lease requirement. If you're going to fix it, you should have something in writing, signed by both you and the landlord, agreeing to the choice of replacement parts and the choice of anyone you hire to do the work. It might be nice to think you can save money by doing it yourself. But if anything happens and there's damage, you could be liable. You should have renter's insurance. You should check your renter's insurance policy to see what, if anything, it says about tenant responsibility for repairs. Your insurance might pay for it. More importantly, will your insurance protect you if something goes wrong and there's damage? I recommend you copy this and modify it as you see fit or, if you don't this is correct, make up something that you think is correct. Keep an electronic copy on your computer. But also have a notebook in which you keep how-to papers, so you don't have to figure it out all over again at some time in the future and to use the how-tos you accumulate to help you make new how-tos as necessary. Also keep documentation, especially warranties. Scan receipts (receipt ink is notorious for fading over time) and warranties, keep them the electronic copies on your computer and print the receipts and put the printed receipts and original receipts with the warranty papers in the notebook. Keep a manilla envelope with receipts, warranties, instructions, and any papers you receive from anyone you hire to do the work. When you move out, you should give the envelope to the landlord so the landlord will be able to maintain what was installed and obtain warranty service if necessary.
You can read about Magnuson Moss here, but it only applies to warranties on goods, not services. As you note, the warranty on the unit is still valid. As for agreeing, it is not unusual that a consumer is not aware what all they are agreeing to when they buy a house. One of those myriad signatures that you put on myriad documents was your agreement to contract terms in the pile of papers that you were handed. If you trace through the entire pile of pieces of paper, you should find something saying that you agree to &quot;all of the attached conditions&quot;, which is where you are supposed to say &quot;Wait, what conditions?&quot;.
The fundamental question is whether children can own property: they clearly can. See Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure (I improved the link so it can be more easily read). As a general rule any property acquired by the child in any way except by its own labor or services belongs to the child, and not to the parent McClosky v. Cyphert, 3 Casey (27 Pa.) 220 The right of an infant to be the owner of property is as clear and as well protected as that of a person who has arrived at full age. When anything is given to an infant to be held by him in his own right, he has the title to it, and the parent, guardian or master has in law no more right to take it (for any purpose beyond safekeeping) than a stranger. Wheeler v. R. Co., 31 Kan. 640, 3 P. 297, 300: As a matter of law a minor may own property the same as any other person. He may obtain it by inheritance, by gift, or by purchase; and there is nothing in the law that would prevent even a father from giving property to his minor child. A father may also so emancipate his minor child as to entitle him to receive his own wages. It is probably true that where a minor child lives with his father, and is supported by him, all things given to the child in the way of support, such as clothing, for instance, would still belong to the father and not to the child. But things given by the father to the child, not in the way of support, but with the understanding that they should become the property of the child, would, undoubtedly, become the property of the child. Banks v. Conant, 14 Allen 497, the father has no title to the property of the child, nor is the capacity or right of the latter to take property or receive money by grant, gift or otherwise, except as a compensation for services, in any degree qualified or limited during minority. Whatever therefore an infant acquires which does not come to him as a compensation for services rendered, belongs absolutely to him, and his father cannot interpose any claim to it, either as against the child, or as against third persons who claim title or possession from or under the infant. However, a parent does have the right to prevent their child from using or acquiring a computer, car (also prohibited statutorily in Washington), television, cell phone; they can also prevent a child from spending their savings. Parents do retain their property right in things that they give to their children for general support and maintenance, such as a pair of shoes, or books. There can also be specific statutes such as the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (Washington version) which partially recognize this right, making it easy for a person to transfer property to a minor, where the property is in the care of a custodian, but not owned by the custodian.
The retailer You can try making a subject access request under Articles 15(1) and 15(3) of the UK GDPR. Provide as much information as you can (your name, date of purchase, store you purchased it from, copy of the receipt, etc.) and ask for the serial number. If they still have it, and it is stored in a way which is linked to you in an identifiable way, then they are obliged to provide it without undue delay (and in any event within 30 days). You may want to provide a copy of your passport in the request to pre-empt them coming back with an ID check request under Article 12(6), which then allows them to delay processing the request until you have replied. As stated above, if they no longer have the data or you are not identifiable from the data then they do not have to provide it. If they do have to provide it but refuse then you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office or ask the County Court for a compliance order under section 167 of the Data Protection Act 2018. The insurer Regulation 3(1) of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 prohibits &quot;unfair commercial practices&quot;. Regulation 3(4) provides that a commerical practice is unfair if, inter alia, it is listed in Schedule 1. Paragraph 27 of Schedule 1 contains the following item: Requiring a consumer who wishes to claim on an insurance policy to produce documents which could not reasonably be considered relevant as to whether the claim was valid, or failing systematically to respond to pertinent correspondence, in order to dissuade a consumer from exercising his contractual rights. As you've provided proof that you purchased the item, you can try to argue that having the serial number of the lost item can not &quot;reasonably be considered relevant&quot;. Yes, the contract says that you must provide it, but consumer rights legislation overrides contractual provisions. You may also want to consider dealing with the insurer by email/post instead of by phone, (a) to avoid continuing to waste time on hold, and (b) because if they systematically fail to respond then this may also cause them to be in breach of the above provision, (c) to acquire evidence which you can use later. Escalating If you get no results from the insurer, make a formal complaint to them through their complaints process. Under the FCA Handbook rule DISP 1.3.1R, the insurer is required to provide a complaints procedure. Under rule DISP 1.6.2R they are required to provide a final response to a complaint within 8 weeks. If you are not happy with the response, you can escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service which has the power to make financial awards pursuant to section 229 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (&quot;FSMA&quot;). Doing so is free of charge and is therefore a good alternative to going to court. The ombudsman can also make awards that are not strictly based on law (i.e. they can go further than the courts can) because of section 228 of FSMA which provides that: &quot;A complaint is to be determined by reference to what is, in the opinion of the ombudsman, fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.&quot; You must generally escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving your final response from the insurer (rule DISP 2.8.2R).
You had bought product A. That constitutes you offering the seller a contract for you to get product A for your money. They keep the money and send product B - and now are in breach of the contract, as that is materially different from the contract both agreed to. Legal recourse is, depending on the customer protection laws, a refund of the payments or getting the correct product A. If you have a right for the Product A depends on exactly how it was advertized and the exact ToS.
If I may paraphrase the scenario: The customer has a contract with the insurer The customer is contemplating undergoing a certain procedure and is unsure if it is covered under the contract The customer calls the insurer to ask this specific question The insurer says "yes" The customer undergoes the procedure The insurer refuses to pay on the ground that it is not covered under the contract. Let's put aside issues of evidence and what can be proved and assume these facts are not in dispute. There is no question that the contract has been renegotiated; it hasn't. This avoids the necessity of considering if the insurer's employee has the authority to do this or it the customer can rely that they do even if they don't. There are two possibilities: The procedure is covered and the insurer must pay under contract The procedure isn't covered and the insurer must pay under the tort of negligent misstatement. The insurer is vicariously liable for the actions of its employee. The insurer owes a duty of care to a customer who asks such a question to answer it correctly. It is foreseeable that the customer would act on the insurer's advice and incur costs that they may have avoided if the correct advice had been given. Nothing is ever certain in the law but this is as close as you can get.