Black Horse Ltd v Langford
High Court 25 April 2007

Mr Langford had agreed to obtain a Lotus Esprit car from a dealership, Castleford, using his BMW as part-exchange. A hire-purchase agreement was entered into with Black Horse. Castleford went out of business without discharging the agreed amount of credit outstanding on the BMW. Mr Langford sued Black Horse under s.56 and won in the County Court. Black Horse appealed on the basis that s.56 did not apply in their special circumstances – when Castleford arranged finance, they contacted a credit-broker, “North Riding”, who then packaged the deal for Black Horse. Vehicles were sold to North Riding and then to Black Horse. The court agreed so s.56 did not protect Mr Langford.

This case provides a questionable outcome - presuming it was a conventional D-C-S agreement and North Riding was an undisclosed agent of the creditor. It is suggested that an appeal would have been worthwhile on this matter.

(c) R J Imrie 12/01/2010