It’s easy for a dealership to accumulate a large library of forms over the years from various sources.  Perhaps your retail installment contracts were purchased from a national vendor, the bill of sale was acquired from your state dealers association, the service warranty and physical damage forms were provided by the service providers and a generic buyers guide was downloaded from the internet. The question you must ask yourself is, “Do I have a cohesive set of forms that are compliant with my state?”

It’s imperative to have consistency in your form package verbiage to prevent legal challenges of sales transactions. It’s inappropriate to provide a buyers order which may disclose a 30 day warranty while the retail installment contract disclaims implied warranties. Additional examples are disclosing administrative fees on one form which is communicated as a document fee on another, as well as dueling arbitration agreements. Confusion in terminology can deprive a dealer of an important line of defense against lawsuits. It’s advisable to have your form package reviewed by legal counsel to ensure compliance and consistency.