More details to this question:
My wife and I recently put a deposit down on a harlequin Great Dane puppy of $260.00. My wife is in the military and found out that she will be deploying in the next month. When we saw the original Craigslist ad we did not see anywhere that it said a non refundable deposit. The ad got flagged for some reason and they made a new one and stated that it was non refundable. We went to see the puppy and had decided that we wanted one out of two and the breeder said they would give us a few days to decide. While we were there we gave them $260.00 but they did not state that it was non refundable. 3 days later my wife had been told she was leaving and we decided that we did not want to get either of the dogs. We were wondering since nothing was signed and we were not told while we were there if we would win the full amount of the deposit in small claims court?
1 ANSWER
You have a contract, but the question is what are its terms? You left a deposit, presumably binding the seller not to sell the dog to someone else for some period of time. The question is whether the deposit was non-refundable. Assuming that the seller doesn't testify that he/she told you that the deposit was non-refundable (or is not believed when he/she does so testify), but rather confirms your account that the issue was not discussed, and the Court believes you when you testify that you didn't see the new ad with the non-refundability term until after you'd left the deposit, the Court may decide whether the non-refundable deposit was part of your contract by looking at the terms of any past dealings between you and the seller, or by looking at the standard terms of doing business in the dog breeder industry.
Frankly, in a situation like this, in small claims court if the seller is still able to sell the puppy for the same amount and therefore didn't actually lose anything, I would expect the Court to lean in your favor, but there's no guarantee.
Answered on Jan 02nd, 2014 at 12:08 PM