Car finance advice needed please.

smothy

I am over two years into a 4 year finance agreement with Advantage Finance for a car. My payments were for £274 pm, but for the last 6 months or so I have been paying £100 pm.In May last year I was offered a job, unfortunately, the lad who offered me the job (my brother) lost the contract before we even started work. Therefore I was out of work. I continued to make the full payments,and tried to claim on my loan insurance. This was declined as I had made myself unemployed. I tried to continue the payments, but I was also unable to claim Jobseekers or any other benefit as I have a few stamps missing.

The upshot is that I am now some £1500 in arrears,still out of work, and virtually unable to afford the car so I am thinking of handing it back to the finance company. I know you can do this, once you have paid over 50% of the loan back, but how will I stand with the arrears, and the warranty, PPI, etc. that I took out at the same time and paid a lot of money for?

Any advice gratefully received,

cheers.

ILW

smothy wrote: »

I am over two years into a 4 year finance agreement with Advantage Finance for a car. My payments were for £274 pm, but for the last 6 months or so I have been paying £100 pm.In May last year I was offered a job, unfortunately, the lad who offered me the job (my brother) lost the contract before we even started work. Therefore I was out of work. I continued to make the full payments,and tried to claim on my loan insurance. This was declined as I had made myself unemployed. I tried to continue the payments, but I was also unable to claim Jobseekers or any other benefit as I have a few stamps missing.

The upshot is that I am now some £1500 in arrears,still out of work, and virtually unable to afford the car so I am thinking of handing it back to the finance company. I know you can do this, once you have paid over 50% of the loan back, but how will I stand with the arrears, and the warranty, PPI, etc. that I took out at the same time and paid a lot of money for?

Any advice gratefully received,

cheers.

Only if it was a hire purchase agreement, noy a personal loan. Do you know what type of agreement you have?
Also I believe that voluntary termination is not a right if the account is in arrears.

smothy

Yes, it is a HP agreement. I bought the car from Concept Car Credit and Advantage supplied the finance.

As there is no sign of me getting back into work in the immediate future, the debt is simply going to snowball, and Advantage specialise in adverse credit so it will be an expensive rate of interest they will add to the arrears,I assume.

inmypocketnottheirs

What about reclaiming the PPI? This isn't an area I have any experience of, but if you could reclaim and use that to bring the account up to date, then you could do a voluntary termination.

Additionally, I would ask for statement of account to see exactly what has been added in the way of charges.

smothy

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

What about reclaiming the PPI? This isn't an area I have any experience of, but if you could reclaim and use that to bring the account up to date, then you could do a voluntary termination.

Additionally, I would ask for statement of account to see exactly what has been added in the way of charges.

That's something I had considered, seeing as how they rejected my claim.

I wonder if it would do any harm to just ask them what the situation is re handing the car back? Even if it isn't a goer at the moment, as long as I am making the agreed £100 there would be little they could do to penalise me, I would have thought.

smothy

Well, all avenues failed, and the finance agreement ends in October this year. By then, even though we increased our payments to £150 PM, we'll be some £3,500 in arrears. Bummer. Car worth about £1500, if that in todays climate, so even selling that in october wouldn't help much.

Looks like I'll be signing a new stitch up agreement to pay off the arrears at a very high rate for the next 4 years or so.

Apples2

Handing the car back after paying 50% of the HP agreement was written into the contract terms.

Unfortunately, once you failed to maintain the payments the contract was broken so this option was no longer a right.

Bummer indeed...

t508

Smothy, i dont think they will ask you to sign anther agreement. they will probably just want you to pay a fair amount and pay additional interest at the orignal rate. if you are working now then just get on with it and get it paid. they wont refuse payments so just get it paid of and move on with your life. I dont think they are being too unreasinable as they have allowed you to keep the car for this long amyway.