How binding is a bill of sale?
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How binding is a bill of sale?
I just bought a car and the dealer on a piece of paper wrote down and added up all the fees associated with the purchase of the car and told me what the amount would be. Then he wrote up the bill of sale and put all the fees down and this time when he totalled it up it was about $300 short of what he told me before. I never noticed it and we went to the bank and got a loan and paid him and we signed all the other papers needed and he put the temp sticker on and we drove away. About 15 minutes later he called and told me about the mistake he made and wanted me to send him a check for the $300. Do I owe him the $300?
Asked on March 14, 2013 under Business Law, Utah
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 11 years ago | Contributor
The issue is the source of the discrepancy. He cannot add new fees to the sale price that he had not disclosed to you before, and he cannot unilaterally increase the amount of previously disclosed fees or costs; the agreement and agreed-upon price are binding as to those. But if the line item fees are properly disclosed but he committed a mathematical error in calculating them (e.g. when calculating tax, used the right rate, but multiplied incorrectly; or committed an arithmetic error in adding up the line items), that can be adjusted. As long as all proper disclosures were made and a person could have determined from the paperwork what the price should have been, the law allows mathetical, typographic, etc. errors to be corrected.
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