I would definitely try my darnest to get one or both of your licensed veterinarians to document and state that this horse has exam findings which show that he is not medically fit for the intended use.
But good luck getting a vet to commit. So far in my life I have had exactly one vet document a pre-purchase exam this way. And I have paid for approximately 20 pre-purchase exams. In my experience, the more expensive the horse, the more wishy-washy the vet becomes.
I would try to get it back.
I have a problem with the word " entitled" as it is used today. Chances are if they had any other interested parties (as they waited on " their vet" to get around to doing the PPE) they took their numbers down to call if the horse didnāt sell.
Maybe keep a very, very small % for their trouble but they arenāt entitled to $1000 of someone elseās good faith money.
Whatās the harm in asking? But I would have low expectations because you didnāt discuss the issue in advance.
Itās not inappropriate to ask for a refund, but without a purchase agreement, I would assume the deposit is non-refundable, no matter the circumstances. Returning a deposit negates the entire purpose of having a deposit in the first place. But I also donāt believe in a horse āpassingā or āfailingā a PPE.
That Consumer Rights Act 2015 appears to be a UK law. Not sure where OP is located. Iām not aware of any such law in the USA that guarantees āfit for use,ā and usually Sales agreements / Bill of Sales in the USA have a clause or statement stating the seller does not guarantee any fitness for use.
But also, if the horse is sound right now, then they are fit for use. Not a single person can guarantee future soundness of any horse. His xrays could have come out squeaky clean and then in six months he could slice a tendon in half.
Iām also skeptical that the horse is completely sound with āsevere arthritic changes in both hocks.ā Either heās not currently sound, or likely the arthritic changes are mild, not severe.
This is a good lesson to have clarity on the deposit with the terms in writing, but as for what is ārightā - to me the deposit is there to ensure that the buyer arranges for the vet check with all due urgency. Iām on the side of possibly nonrefundable if the buyer walks away for no good reason, but absolutely refundable if the vet check shows big scary surprises.
As far as keeping the horse off the market, the seller just learned that the market for the horse isnāt what they expected, and they will have to disclose going forward. This is an issue that affects the value and the desirability to any buyer.
I also agree that at the end of the day, that as much as the $1k deposit would hurt, itās much better than being stuck with the horse who has such severe findings.
Yeah, Iāve twice put down 10% pending PPE and twice orally agreed with the seller/noted on the form of payment that it was fully refundable pending adverse PPE findings (but had no additional written contract in place at that time.) In both cases I went ahead with the purchase, but I have every confidence that it would have been refunded even absent written contract if I saw something I couldnāt live with.
That said, it is important to ask first to clarifyāsome sellers, like Jessica Redman, do ask for a nonrefundable deposit to hold the horse, and thatās totally fair as well! Itās just a question of meeting of the minds, and without asking first, you canāt know. Ideally the seller would specify up front. I do think, as most have said here, that itās fair to ask now even though you didnāt before in light of how things went, and the fact that you were not the one with the hold-up scheduling.
I thought I would come back and finish the story!
We were actually buying though a broker and not the owner. I donāt know if the broker knew how the horse would x-ray. We spoke to the attending vet, who was not informed he was performing a PPE, until we called to pay the bill. He thought he was doing a soundness check and that we owned the horse and the broker was our trainer, acting on our behalf. Once we cleared that up, he apologized profusely and said he would have handled things differentlyā¦ and called immediately upon seeing the hock x-rays before moving on with the exam. He sent the x-rays to our vet, who said he would not advise buying the horse as anything other than a way to contribute to his kidsā college fund. This definitely was not a case of āminor changesā or āage related wear and tearā or even āconcernedā.
The brokers declined to return the deposit, saying could have sold the horse to someone else. My guess is that they will reduce the price to a point where a potential buyer wonāt vet check. Or maybe keep collecting deposits, vetting the horse, keeping the depositā¦ wash, rinse, and repeat. If you find a good minded, tall, pretty, bay OTQH gelding priced suspiciously low, PM me!
Meanwhile, I am remembering why I HATE to buy horses.
Well, that is a broker to put on your Do Not Call List! Iād be tempted to inform the owner, though they might not really care. At least your daughter did the right thing by vetting the horse, and wasnāt out the full purchase price. I hope you have good luck going forward.
This is a huge red flag to me regarding the brokerās behavior. Wow. The vet didnāt know he was performing a PPE? And didnāt know who owned the horse? You didnāt speak to the vet beforehand?
Yeah, now thereās even MORE red flags both from the OP and the broker.
OP, if you allowed someone to schedule a PPE with their vet without you contacting the vet to agree upon a procedure prior to beginning, youāre a rookie buyer and could really use someone to guide you here. Do you have someone, not even a trainer necessarily, that is experienced and can help you along?
And also - please be careful buying a very green horse when youāre a very green horseman. The mistake you made regarding the vet/PPE is a very beginner mistake.
You didnāt speak to the vet at all prior to the PPE?
I tried to include enough details to tell the story, but not so many to turn this post into a novel. Of course we spoke to the vetās office. I can only guess that the horse was presented to him at the farm as a lameness exam. He was working on multiple horses for multiple people that day and the broker never said, āMr. Vet, this is the PPE for Bay Tobyā.
We are not rookie buyers, just have never had a situation with like this one: broker who is either shady or disorganized or inexperienced (or all three) combined with a horse that fails the vet check so spectacularly!
Thanks, everyone, for your input. Itās been an interesting conversation!
I think you have a legitimate beef with the vet.
If you spoke to the vet and engaged him to perform a PPE on a horse, it was his responsibility to know/remember that when he got there to do the work and to act accordingly. If the broker said something contrary to that, his responsibility was to get back in contact with you and clarify. You are his client, not the broker.
If the PPE ended up including things that did NOT make sense for a PPE, I would ask the vet to waive those charges. That was a big error on the vetās part if he was engaged to do a PPE and instead went there and did a lameness workup that was more expensive than a PPE would have been.
Even if he was seeing multiple horses in a day, it was his responsibility to understand his engagement with you and act accordingly. Being busy doesnāt excuse that, and if being busy led to confusion he should absorb the cost of work that you didnāt really ask him to do.
The broker sucks here and I am sorry you lost the deposit but I would personally be very upset with the vet. The vet was your agent. The broker was not. The vet is a professional. The broker is (clearly) not.
Wait, you used THEIR vet for the PPE???
Yeah, I donāt understand this at all. Usually with a PPE you talk to the vet about what rads you want, etc., but based on those findings, might opt in/out of additional diagnostics, so the vet should be in contact with you, the person paying for the PPE.
@Buster agree that is not ideal, but sometimes itās the only choice in a remote area. When Iāve had to use the sellerās vet, I inform everyone very clearly that I will be having my vet review the rads and anything else. Got my vet and their vet in a bit of nasty pissing contest at one point, but they took crappy rads and declined to re-do them to get a clearer image of a suspicious blur that could have been the start of ringbone.
Understand that it might be difficult in a remote situation and couldnāt fault you there if you really wanted the horse. However, I would still try to 1.) see if they could trailer the horse to a neutral vet hospital. 2.) BE there 3. Not pay too much for the horse, so that if it goes wrong, Iām not out that much $$. I mainly said what I did for greenies, which obviously doesnāt apply to you 
but Iām always surprised that a LOT of folks donāt think anything about using the sellerās vetā¦and Iām like NOOOOOOO!!! haha
When I sold a horse, I would offer to trailer (gratis) up to 45 minutes (one-way) to the veterinarian of the buyerās choice ā would have pushed the distance a little/time, but wasnāt going to haul the horse hours away.
But, back when our area veterinarians took turns taking evening and weekend calls, chances were that local horse owners would eventually cycle though all of the vets available within a reasonable distance ā meaning that they would be considered a client of all of them, even if for only a one-time emergency call for a horse other than the one for sale.
Due to this, there was the chance of a conflict when I was selling a horse. For examples of out-of-state sales, one buyer told me to just use my regular veterinarian, and another buyer accepted having another veterinarian I had used taking fresh radiographs. I was never trying to hide anything, and didnāt use veterinarians that would have done so.
I donāt think my vet would be willing to drive 4+ hours, do the PPE, and then drive 4+ hours back to his clinic. Would yours? Is this a thing?
I didnāt even ask to be accommodated like this. He was emailed the xrays to review and agreed with the brokerās vet.
He probably wouldnāt have gone himself but could have recommended someone closer or given you names to steer clear of. Sometimes using the sellerās vet is unavoidable but itās usually worth tapping your vetās network first just in case. At least now you know to avoid this broker and vet in the future; neither one of them sounds trustworthy.
Exactly. I want to be within a phone calls reach when a vet does a PPE. In this case, if the hocks are really that far gone, then a PPE would probably have shown issues at the flexion stage, and vet would not even gone on to rads.
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