Man sues over allegedly defective second-hand Porsche

A man bought a second-hand Porsche 911 sports car but returned it more than three years later after finding out it had been previously written off by a UK insurer, the High Court has heard.

Edward Valentine, of Abbeycartron, Longford, claimed the €75,000 car was defective, and he has sued motor dealer Bradys, of Castleknock in Dublin, and Barclay Motors, of Ballymount, Dublin.

He has also sued Lombard Ireland, which handled the hire purchase agreement under which he was to pay a total of €87,000, inclusive of interest.

The defendants deny Mr Valentine’s claims, and Lombard has counter-claimed for €16,665, inclusive of arrears and sums due under the hire purchase arrangement.

The case started in the Circuit Court, but Mr Valentine’s lawyer applied to have it transferred to the High Court because the total amount of the hire purchase agreement exceeds the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, which is limited to cases not exceeding €75,000.

The matter was adjourned to next week to allow the parties to have discussions.

Mr Valentine says he entered into the hire purchase agreement in September 2008 to buy the Porsche 911 Carrera 4S coupe convertible, first registered in the UK in 2004 and reregistered in Ireland in 2007.

It was represented to him that the car was of merchantable quality and free from defects, he says. Instead, he claims, it was grossly defective, failed to function satisfactorily, and had previous substantial crash damage repairs carried out that had not been brought to his attention when he bought it.

Counsel for Mr Valentine told the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, that following investigations, it was discovered that the car had been designated a "category D write-off" in the UK.

This categorisation of write-off refers to a vehicle that has been damaged and that the insurer decides not to have repaired because the cost would be questionable or prohibitive.

Following a report obtained from a motor assessor, Mr Valentine claims the defendants refused to take the vehicle back or to return the purchase price.

While the defence argued he had had the car for nearly four years, he had spent €60,000 and had only clocked up 15,000km in that time, counsel said.