Trying to sort out my daughter's financial mess

standupguy

I agree with property advert - if you/she cannot keep the repayments up on time every month then you should think seriously about your next step.

If you had the arrears paid refunded then wouldn't that amount buy a cheap runaround for now?

You must get to the bottom of the hp agreement as soon as possible for your own peace of mind.

Your daughter needs to know from the hp company, and then the phone handed to you so the company can repeat what they have told your daughter ( means there is a witness) -
Was the agreement terminated?
What date was it terminated?
Has it now been re-instated?
Has any recovery action now ceased?
Can they comfirm by letter that this has been done?

You must get absolute confirmation of the above.

Hootie19

standupguy wrote: »

I agree with property advert - if you/she cannot keep the repayments up on time every month then you should think seriously about your next step.

If you had the arrears paid refunded then wouldn't that amount buy a cheap runaround for now?

You must get to the bottom of the hp agreement as soon as possible for your own peace of mind.

Your daughter needs to know from the hp company, and then the phone handed to you so the company can repeat what they have told your daughter ( means there is a witness) -
Was the agreement terminated?
What date was it terminated?
Has it now been re-instated?
Has any recovery action now ceased?
Can they comfirm by letter that this has been done?

You must get absolute confirmation of the above.

My daughter has spoken to the HP company again, and they have confirmed that the agreement is still in place.

She handed the phone to me, and I asked the questions you suggested.

The woman I spoke to said that the agreement was never terminated, but that the letter was advising my daughter of what would happen (not at all what the letter actually said). So I repeated to her "so the loan agreement was never terminated" and she said "no".

I asked her to confirm that the loan agreement was still in place and ongoing. She confirmed this.

I asked if there was any recovery action outstanding, and she confirmed there was not.

As they are the recovery department they do not send letters or statements (although the person my daughter spoke to earlier agreed to send her a statement showing the up to date position).

I am well aware that my daughter cannot keep up with her commitments at the moment. However, I would have thought that disposing of the car on a voluntary basis has to be better than having it repossessed.

She has applied for several jobs this morning in nurseries, so if she is fortunate enough to get one of those, (salaries seem to be in the £12,000 area for her level of qualification) she will be able to comfortably meet these commitments.

dancingfairy

The trouble is I can't see how she can afford to keep a car -say you got a cheap one for 1000 pounds or so -the insurance might come down if it's in a lower insurance group , but she will still have to tax and mot it and put petrol in it.
Hmmm - it's tough.
Have you got a credit union that might be able to help out? Can she hand the car back in, get a loan from a credit union to buy a new (second hand ) car and pay off the credit card and then set up an agremeent to repay the car loan to the value of 50% (if you are allowed to pay 50% of the agreement and hand the car back).
You would need to work through the figures and see if it was viable and see whether a credit union could help.
df

standupguy

It looks like they sent the termination letter, perhaps to get your daughters reaction before they actually were going to terminate and commence recovery action.

Although it was a bit of a ploy by the hp company, it does mean that as the agreement was never terminated you can all rest easy.

You need to be thinking about the next payment and the date due and make sure it is paid on time - this will then give you more time to consider your options going forward depending on the outcome of your daughters search for better paid employment.

If you wanted to get a handle of where you are financially with the car you could: -

1. Telephone the finance company and ask for a settlement figure
2. Take a look at the autotrader website to see the asking prices of the same model, year and mileage of your daughters car.

You will then know if the value is in excess of the current settlement figure, or perhaps more likely, if the value is less than the settlement figure, how much negative equity there is?

The other sum you could do is work out how much she would have to pay to reach the half hp price shown on the agreement as that is another way to get out of the agreement, hand the car back and walk away - on a voluntary termination

Primrose

One word of advice for your daughter. Every time she makes a phone call about her finances, ask her to ensure that they send a confirming letter or e-mail so that she has a record of it in writing. When you're stressed or pressurised, it's easy to forget or lose track of what has been agreed, and by whom, and it's essential to be able to look back on written records to check and reconfirm what is the state of play.

You may also find at some point, if you haven't already, that your daughter's creditors will not deal with you or speak with you, claiming client privacy under the Data Protection Act. Often banks will not even deal with somebody else's respresentative, even if that person has given a letter of authority, without seeing a formal Power of Attorney document. So it's important for your daughter to deal with as much of the day-to-day administration herself, even if your phone is on loudspeaker and you are beside her to offer help/support. Also, get her into the habit of making a written note for her file summarising every phone conversation. It's amazing how little details can often get forgotten.

You sound as if you're doing a good job for your daughter. She's indeed fortunate you are there for her and although it's very tough for her, when she's is a little older and hopefully out of this mess , she'll probably look back and think "That was hellish but I've learnt a lesson I won't forget". It's so often the case, sadly, that the hard way is the only way people really learn from their mistakes.

fatbelly

The whole issue of HP can be a difficult one to navigate (as you are discovering)

Have you read the National Debtline factsheet?

Factsheet | How to deal with Hire Purchase debt

property.advert

If she got an interview tomorrow and was offered the job in a couple of weeks and had to give at least a couple of weeks notice at her current place, then who is going to pay all these bills for the next two to three months until this £800 a month salary comes in ?

If she does not get a job, who is going to pay the bills ?

How many more bills can you pay ?

I don't think she will be able to pay her bills if she gets a 12k a year job. That is if, not when.

I can see the mother's own statement in 6 months time. "tried to get daughter out of financial mess and now we owe £5000 on credit cards and overdrafts and they are taking us to court as well as our daughter".

Sorry but the OP is dreaming and despite admitting there is no money to pay the bills, seems to be willing to get into debt herself when it will not help. Stop now, end it now.

From my reckoning, the OP's daughter perhaps made 1 or at most 2 payments out of 60 on the HP agreement and they were made from unauthorised overdrafts.

There is no way out of this mess trying to polyfila over metre wide holes in the finances.

GeorgeUK

I agree with primrose, it's best to get written confirmation of where your daughter stands. Getting confirmation over the phone isn't worth the paper it's prnted on. I would aslo request an update of the remaining balance and interest rate.

I've not had a good look at what can or can't be afforded, but hopefully you will have an idea if keeping the car is an option or not. If you are not going to keep it you must send a letter by recorded delivery for the voluntary termination - do not do this over the phone. I have seen a number of threads where people have done this, they say they'll send someone to pick the car up and receive a letter stating that the car has been reposessed. It is important to get proof of delivery for a letter like this.

HP debts and tax are priority debts. Paying towards the creditcard or overdraft are secondary to these.

Hootie19

thank you all again.

We know that she cannot afford to keep this car, so will look into how to go about disposing of it, as soon as possible.

fatbelly - thank you for the link. I slept very badly last night, and I'm too tired to concentrate on the information tonight, so will have a proper look tomorrow.

She has been extremely lucky in that my friend (her godmother) has agreed to make the next three months' payment on the HP agreement, while we look into getting rid of the car, so she at least has a little bit of a breathing space.

She is going to see an agency which specialises in childcare vacancies on Thursday, so hopefully she will be on the road to a new job, and a fresh financial start.