Nichols

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Michelle Nichols purchased a car from defendant Century West, LLC, using three checks as a down payment. Two of the checks were dated the day after the contract was signed, and one check was dated about two weeks later. After owning the car for 11 months, Nichols sued Century West and defendant BMW Financial Services NA, LLC, which financed the vehicle, seeking to rescind the contract. Nichols’s evidence at trial focused mostly on whether she received a fair deal for her trade-in vehicle, a new car she had leased one month earlier. Following a bench trial, the court found in favor of defendants.

On appeal, Nichols’s sole argument is that because Century West entered her three-check down payment on the line of the sales contract describing it as a down payment, rather than on the line describing it as a “deferred” down payment, she has the right to rescind the contract under the Rees-Levering Motor Vehicle Sales and Finance Act (Civ. Code, § 2981 et seq.) (the Act). We affirm the judgment. Neither the language of the Act nor the cases Nichols cites compel a finding that a car dealer’s informal agreement to wait to deposit a check tendered the day…