Writing a lemon Law letter
Writing a good lemon letter is a form of art that can help you get rid of the lemon car sold to you by the manufacturer. It’s sort of a demand letter to the manufacturer which has to be given before the consumer invokes the lemon law rights provided under the relevant legislation. The letter is meant to accomplish a few things, such as letting the car maker know that you mean business and you are well informed of your rights under the lemon laws. It also serves the purpose of being the official notice to the manufacturer and is mandatory requirements in most states.
The language used is usually in “demand terms”, and as such, using apologetic language is unnecessary. The structure of the letter would be as follows. The first thing to write would be your own address and contact details, as you would do in any letter, formal or otherwise. The date would follow, and then the manufacturer’s address would follow.
The main body of the letter would start by notifying the manufacturer that it is in breach of the state’s lemon law warranty Act with regard to some particular warranties that the manufacturer gave when the car was bought. The particular warranties so breached would then be itemized in the letter. The letter would then proceed to describe the nature of the defects that the car has.
The consumer can opine whether she considers the defects to be serious enough to cause death if an accident happened especially when referring to the manual the car maker supplied. For instance the manual may warn of grace danger of driving around when any of the seats is not latched to the vehicle properly, as this is capable of swinging forward or backwards when the car is in motion and this may injure the occupants of the car. This warning may be referred and even cited to when writing the letter to show the gravity of the defect.
The letter can then describe what the state law provide as regards lemon cars, and particularly, when the defect can potentially cause death, the manufacturer is only allowed to attend to the defect only once in many states. Any difficulty experienced whilst driving the vehicle may also be shortly described.
The letter could then recite the events that followed following the discovery of the defects, such as any visits to the dealer/manufacturer, and whether the repairs that were carried out in those occasions proved successful or not, and whether the manufacturer/dealer took any other measures to resolve the issue, and why the measures so taken proved to be inadequate. In conclusion, the letter should provide that based on all that information, the consumer is demanding for some relief that he considers adequate, such as replacement of the vehicle or refund of the full/partial purchase price.
The letter usually sums up by providing that failure to provide a remedy within a certain period of time (say, thirty days) the consumer will proceed to avail to himself/herself all the remedies available under the relevant state lemon laws.
References
- http://www.gimmelaw.com/sample-form-lemon-law-complaint-demand-letter
- http://www.lemonjustice.com/lemon-law/NJ_demand_letter.php
- http://www.ohiolemonlaw.com/complaint-form.html