Motor Home subject to HP agreement with a previous owner

[desdemona01]

Hi Everyone,
I hope you can help us with this.
I'll start with a little bit of background:
We bought a motor home just over 12 months ago from a dealer in motor homes, it's a fairly substantial concern with it's own garage & service centre etc. We paid for it outright using some inheritance money.
This weekend we have received a letter from a finance company stating that there is outstanding balance secured against the van. They have enclosed a questionnaire for us to fill in.
Obviously we're in a right old state as we're afraid we may lose the van.
OH called the AA and they advised us that we're not covered by the sale of goods act as it does no apply in this instance (i.e. the dealer is liable as he didn't have the right to sell the vehicle as it wasn't technically his to sell). So before we fill in the questionnare, have any of you lovely people got any advice for us please or point us in the right direction?
I'm about to give Trading Standards a call, but I'm a bit stuck on where else to look.

Many thanks in anticipation,

Desdemona

[Hintza]

The Consumer Credit Act 1974 gives ‘good title’ to the innocent private purchaser of a car which later turns out to be subject to a claim by a finance company because of a previous, unpaid hire-purchase agreement. This means that the finance company is not entitled to repossess the car from you. Remember, this does not apply to cars which have been stolen, or cars that were subject to a lease or hire agreement.

You need to find out what sort of agreement it was, from what I understand.

[Mark Hewitt]

Wouldn't the dealer be breaking the law if they knowingly sell something which is subject to finance?

I know when I was trading my car in, the first question every dealer asked me was is the car still subject to a finance agreement. As I was required to clear the finance before I could sell the car.

[desdemona01]

Thanks for your replies peeps. I've just spoken to trading standards and it looks like we're in the clear as we are the first private owners. They advised me to write back to the finance co and tell them this and refer them to the dealer who sold it to us. Phew!

[desdemona01]

Hi everyone,
Just a quick update & a bit of advice please regarding this.
We spoke to various agencies including Trading Standards & National Debt Helpline and did a bit of googling, also great advice from Hintza.
As far as we can make out we're the first innocent buyers and have good title on the vehicle therefore, as advised we sent back a reply to this effect and advised them of the contact dealers from whom we bought it.
I've just got in now & there's a message from them asking us to call them.
DH & I both agreed that it was probably safer to deal with all of this by letter then it's all documented and less chance of error/misinterpretation.
The question is: do I call them back?
P.S. We didn't give them out telephone number.........
Thanks again in anticipation

[Hintza]

Yes I think you do. However if they deviate from anyhing that can be construed as general information (ie who, where and how much you paid) then I think you would be quite within your rights to ask them to contact you in writing.

So be pleasnt and hopefully this call will sort it out for you.

[desdemona01]

Hello again as you know I posted here for advice about the above problem.
We wrote back to the finance company explaining that we were first innocent buyers etc etc as advised by trading standards and the good people here and various other parties.
Since the we have had no further communication from them.
We assume they've moved on to the next party on the chain ie the company that sold us the van and thought nothing more of it.
However, DH has checked the HPI on the van and there is money still outstanding on the van.
Which means if we try to sell it we're stymied.
Does anyone have any advice how we can get this removed?
Obviously without paying the debt off!
I'm going to call the very helpful man at trading standards in the morning, but I though I would see if anyone out there had any ideas.
Sorry for the long post, if you've kept with me this far.
Desdemona

[desdemona01]

Hello, any ideas anyone?

[Lorian]

I'm no legal expert, but I'd be calling the dealer.

[Silk]

Hi,
Did you ring them back after getting the message from them ?
If so what did they say ?

[desdemona01]

Hi,
Did you ring them back after getting the message from them ?
If so what did they say ?

No as I explained in the first post we wrote to them & explained that we had good title on the van & never heard from them again:confused:

[desdemona01]

I've since spoken to Trading Standards about how to go about getting this debt removed (without actually paying it off of course!).
They have advised us to write to the finance co, the company which showed the HPI outstanding when we checked for ourselves and also the dealer who sold us the van to ask them.
So the plan is to do that & see what response we get.
Just thought I'd add that in case anyone else was ever in the same position.:D