Legal Question in Consumer Law in Nebraska

Car purchase negotiations

We gave a price to a sales person we would pay on a car and said we would call and find out if it was approved. When called the sales person, said when do you want to pick it up. They tried to jack up the price, but I stuck firmly to the price. Then tried to have us sign papers agreeing to the price, without the financial paperwork being there. When I refuse without the paperwork with the price, we went to the office where the guy tried to tack on an additional charge. Is this legal without the ''document fee'' disclosed? The response was it's charged to everyone. We said thanks and left, but we still want the car for the agreed upon price. Are we still legally able to obtain the car for the agreed upon price? (The manager tried to tell us they were losing money on the car.)


Asked on 6/28/08, 8:11 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Katherine Owen

Re: Car purchase negotiations

If you want to force the dealer to sell you the car at the price you agreed on, you would be asking a court for specific performance (meaning, forcing a particular action to be taken vs. asking for a money judgment.) To do that, as the very first hurdle you'd have to prove the agreement for the sales price (and not a cent more) existed, which means you'd need something to that effect in writing. It doesn't sound like from your question that such a document exists.

I commend you for not signing on the contract for a greater price, because a lot of people would have cracked under the pressure. However, unless you have a written contract you can sue on, you're not going to get the car for the price you want. Since you don't like this dealerships strong arm tactics, try shopping elsewhere, and understand that most if not all of these places are going to add charges here and there at the end of the process.

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Answered on 6/29/08, 1:28 pm


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