I’ve posted before about the Revenue’s Open Market Selling Price (OMSP) which I and many others feel is complete nonsense. With the economy faltering, many dealers are selling used cars for cost or little margin. As the time to clear a lot for new stock and, hopefully, profit increases with every passing month a strange situation has been created. The OMSP’s for larger-engined used cars are in many cases substantially above the estimates of the finance companies. My personal experience is that a well known finance company has refused to offer finance on 2 cars priced 20% (and more) less than the OMSP as they felt “the prices were way too high based on their adjusted forecourt valuations”. I’d rather not give the details of each car but suffice to say they hadn’t been crashed or clocked according to cartell.ie
My experience has been backed up by anecdotal comments by the country’s best known car salesman, Bill Cullen who has acknowledged that finance companies are now very concerned that the luxury cars on their books will be nearly worthless after a few years.
So why, in the face of this undeniable recession, have the Revenue Commissioners not adjusted their OMSP’s? Also, the “forecourt valuations” used by the finance companies to decide the maximum permissible HP or lease on a vehicle should be published. How is the consumer supposed to magically figure this out when there’s such a spread of second hand prices, few sales and official revenue OMSP’s which are lies misleading.
As it stands, it’s a waste of the consumer’s time and money.
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