GVE London

[Matty]

So I've seen some of their stuff come up on social media before - all looked very fancy but typical "wide boy" clientelle and sales, although largely (or so it seems) via SoR.

However, rumours were they'd gone into administration. Cue people like AutoPap on Twitter announcing owners to pull their cars out before they get caught up. Some have gone to collect their new car they'd that purchased, only for the current owner to take it back due to the news -
Clicky from PH

Then you've got the owner of the business saying it's not true, they're just investigating "fraud" within the business, and it's BAU?
Instagram post

Seems to be yet another big dealer I never understood how they survived as long as they did given their "interesting" reputation. Bit like Keighley.

[Beany]

(allegedly, etc )

[Mito Man]

SOR =

[Carlos]

SOR =

Why?

[Carlos]

Can anyone brighter than me explain why you would file a NoI unless you you were going to the wall or trying to gain a significant reduction or write off from your creditors?

That's a pretty sleazy piece of spin in that video!

[Mito Man]

SOR =

Why?

Because when the dealer goes bankrupt you can have fun spending months and months going through the extremely slow legal process of proving your ownership.
And you never know the financial situation of a dealer. A lot of dealers that undertake SOR are cash poor, debt heavy.

[Carlos]

That's only if you allow them to put the V5 into trade and even then they don't own the car.

I've sold SOR twice and kept a key and the V5. I'm sure there are horror stories if you have given everything in favour of the dealer but that's not my experience.

[Mito Man]

V5 isn’t proof of ownership and neither is a car key and then you can have can have a wide range of cases where someone may have purchased the car but you don’t have funds yet etc - it’s a lot of risk of one side.

[Matty]

Oof.

Story of someone caught up in the SOR.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/s/8HN5gcAOgP

[Jobbo]

Oof.

Story of someone caught up in the SOR.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/s/8HN5gcAOgP

"Send this to Yianni and Mark McCann" - yeah, that'll do a lot of good when there's a police investigation which led to armed officers seizing a car

There will be plenty of people who don't get their money back. SOR is a dangerous thing to do as seller; worse, if you're the buyer and it's not disclosed that the car is on SOR then you might be ripped off like this poor buyer.

[240PP]

Just read that GVE owned the building they were trading out of. Could that be sold and buyers reimbursed some cash that way?

[Jobbo]

Just read that GVE owned the building they were trading out of. Could that be sold and buyers reimbursed some cash that way?

They're in administration, but there's no realistic prospect of the business continuing so it'll end up being liquidated and the assets being sold with the proceeds used to pay the administrators and liquidators, any mortgage, the government (any unpaid taxes etc) and any debenture holders (stock finance providers, for instance) before the unsecured creditors get anything. I'd not expect their assets to go far down that list.

[Jimexpl]

Oof.

Story of someone caught up in the SOR.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/s/8HN5gcAOgP

"Send this to Yianni and Mark McCann" - yeah, that'll do a lot of good when there's a police investigation which led to armed officers seizing a car

There will be plenty of people who don't get their money back. SOR is a dangerous thing to do as seller; worse, if you're the buyer and it's not disclosed that the car is on SOR then you might be ripped off like this poor buyer.

Looking back it amazes me how easily I could bring a car in on SOR when I was working in the high-end motor trade. In most cases the sellers had never met me before, had no idea who my boss was, whether he owned the building or was borrowing heavily to function; the shiny showroom in a prominent location (Chiswick, Hogarth Roundabout) and similar vehicles in stock was all it took for someone to hand over the keys, registration document and history file for the car.
I got all sorts in; F40, Miura, genuine AC Cobra, a Joe Macari built 250 California recreation, 250 Lusso, 365GTC.

[IanF]

Oof.

Story of someone caught up in the SOR.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/s/8HN5gcAOgP

"Send this to Yianni and Mark McCann" - yeah, that'll do a lot of good when there's a police investigation which led to armed officers seizing a car

There will be plenty of people who don't get their money back. SOR is a dangerous thing to do as seller; worse, if you're the buyer and it's not disclosed that the car is on SOR then you might be ripped off like this poor buyer.

Looking back it amazes me how easily I could bring a car in on SOR when I was working in the high-end motor trade. In most cases the sellers had never met me before, had no idea who my boss was, whether he owned the building or was borrowing heavily to function; the shiny showroom in a prominent location (Chiswick, Hogarth Roundabout) and similar vehicles in stock was all it took for someone to hand over the keys, registration document and history file for the car.
I got all sorts in; F40, Miura, genuine AC Cobra, a Joe Macari built 250 California recreation, 250 Lusso, 365GTC.

You’d have to sell elec Chinese vehicles to work there now.. we took over a pub in Belgravia this weekend for my step-daughter’s 21st, and it took forever to get in as someone had abandoned a vehicle on the Hammersmith flyover and the police were being understandably cautious, so I now know there Omoda and a.n.other Chinese company there

[MikeHunt]

You have to feel for the guy purchasing his dream car, seems very heavy handed from the police. I think financing a car, with the intention of paying it off in 6/12 weeks is sensible, avoids most serious problems.

[GG.]

"Send this to Yianni and Mark McCann" - yeah, that'll do a lot of good when there's a police investigation which led to armed officers seizing a car

There will be plenty of people who don't get their money back. SOR is a dangerous thing to do as seller; worse, if you're the buyer and it's not disclosed that the car is on SOR then you might be ripped off like this poor buyer.

Looking back it amazes me how easily I could bring a car in on SOR when I was working in the high-end motor trade. In most cases the sellers had never met me before, had no idea who my boss was, whether he owned the building or was borrowing heavily to function; the shiny showroom in a prominent location (Chiswick, Hogarth Roundabout) and similar vehicles in stock was all it took for someone to hand over the keys, registration document and history file for the car.
I got all sorts in; F40, Miura, genuine AC Cobra, a Joe Macari built 250 California recreation, 250 Lusso, 365GTC.

You’d have to sell elec Chinese vehicles to work there now.. we took over a pub in Belgravia this weekend for my step-daughter’s 21st, and it took forever to get in as someone had abandoned a vehicle on the Hammersmith flyover and the police were being understandably cautious, so I now know there Omoda and a.n.other Chinese company there

I always used to enjoy passing the classic car dealership on that roundabout on my way to and from Oxford. Depressing when it became a Tesla dealership and even worse now selling Chinese Range Rover knock offs. Pretty symptomatic of the decline of the last 15 years...

[mik]

You have to feel for the guy purchasing his dream car, seems very heavy handed from the police.

I dunno. I feel really sorry for the guys who purchased and trusted GVE, but would you pay for and drive away a new car without the appropriate part of the V5 document? I was focussed on that when my budget was £300, let alone the tens of thousand/hundreds of thousands/millions/bazillions these people are handing over?

[MikeHunt]

Agree @mik , seems like something that everyone knows, or should.

[Swervin_Mervin]

You have to feel for the guy purchasing his dream car, seems very heavy handed from the police.

I dunno. I feel really sorry for the guys who purchased and trusted GVE, but would you pay for and drive away a new car without the appropriate part of the V5 document? I was focussed on that when my budget was £300, let alone the tens of thousand/hundreds of thousands/millions/bazillions these people are handing over?

This. I walked away from an E91 I looked at in Lincolnshire once for this. Was going to buy it as it was cheap (tired), but when it came to the crunch the V5 was still in the previous owner's name i.e. the owner before those selling it. It might have been them being clueless, or it might have been properly dodgy, but there's no way I was potentially losing £9k on it.

[Jimexpl]

Looking back it amazes me how easily I could bring a car in on SOR when I was working in the high-end motor trade. In most cases the sellers had never met me before, had no idea who my boss was, whether he owned the building or was borrowing heavily to function; the shiny showroom in a prominent location (Chiswick, Hogarth Roundabout) and similar vehicles in stock was all it took for someone to hand over the keys, registration document and history file for the car.
I got all sorts in; F40, Miura, genuine AC Cobra, a Joe Macari built 250 California recreation, 250 Lusso, 365GTC.

You’d have to sell elec Chinese vehicles to work there now.. we took over a pub in Belgravia this weekend for my step-daughter’s 21st, and it took forever to get in as someone had abandoned a vehicle on the Hammersmith flyover and the police were being understandably cautious, so I now know there Omoda and a.n.other Chinese company there

I always used to enjoy passing the classic car dealership on that roundabout on my way to and from Oxford. Depressing when it became a Tesla dealership and even worse now selling Chinese Range Rover knock offs. Pretty symptomatic of the decline of the last 15 years...

It was a nice place to work - seven of us plus the owner. All the other leading specialist dealers and customers used to drop in for a coffee and chat (The owner has been in the trade since the 60s, and a lot of the leading dealers like Simon Kidston were taught by him). The owner was approached by Tesla to lease it, so he relocated to other premises in Queen's Gate Place Mews, then he sold the building on including the Tesla lease.
We had a a cool space upstairs with a 25 seat cinema and a gallery full of motoring memorabilia and 1950s cafe racer motorbikes.

My friend runs the sales team for those Chinese Range Rovers - I haven't been to see him yet, but he seems to be enjoying it (previously seven years running new car sales at Berry BMW).