What You Must Know About The Florida Lemon Law
If you are residing in the state of Florida, then you must be eager to know about what protection accrues to you if you buy within your state. The Motor Vehicle Sales Warranties Act, which is the Florida Lemon Law, gives you legal remedies if you get stuck up with a "lemon motor vehicle". This law is more commonly known as Florida's automobile "lemon law".
The Florida state lemon law must be read along with the federal lemon laws, i.e. the Magnuson-Moss Warranties Act and the Uniform Commercial Code.
While the state law looks into the issues relating to "motor vehicles" per se, the federal laws take within their ambit the other entire consumer articles up for sale, which cost US$25, or above.
In other words, the Florida lemon law applies to new and demonstrator motor vehicles that were sold or leased within the state of Florida. This means that vehicles falling within the category of "used cars" are not covered, with a few exceptions, by this Act. The Act also excludes trucks weighing more that 10,000 pounds, off-road vehicles, motorcycles, mopeds, the living facilities of recreation vehicles and vehicles which are purchased for purposes of resale. Now, to find out if you qualify for protection under the law, you must know whether your motor vehicle has a "substantial defect", or not. A "substantial defect" means a problem that severely dampens the use, safety and/or the value of the vehicle. To further elucidate, if you had to take your vehicle to more than 3 repairs for the same defect or condition, or at least 15 calendar days have passed when the vehicle remains out-of-service for some defects or conditions, you qualify for protection under the law. However, first you have to serve a "Motor Vehicle Defect Notification (MVDN)" via registered mail to the manufacturer, and not the dealer. The manufacturer will then guide you to a nearby repair facility within 10 days of receiving the notice. If he fails to do so, you can proceed with your lemon law procedure and take guidance from an attorney Florida law lemon. All work orders to your attempts at repairing the vehicle must be maintained by you as records. You must also ask for the return receipt of the MVDN. The Florida attorney general lemon law guidelines have further stated that the standard procedure that must be followed in cases of other consumer items, such as pet "lemon" purchases, are also the same. The dealer has to maintain perfect health records of all animals they put up for sale. The consumer has a right to a "veterinary certification" guaranteeing a perfect health of the pet they are interested in purchasing. Failing this, the consumer has a resort to the pet lemon law in Florida. The remedy, in all the above cases, as per the Florida Lemon Law, is either a complete refund or a replacement. Even the repairing, and the medicinal expenses in case of a pet lemon, can be taken back from the manufacturer or dealer, respectively.
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