how to get out of hire agreement

jayne7868

Thanks

The manufacture warranty was 3 years or 100k miles - It is 18k miles over. Fiat are not interested...

We have happily paid for repairs and services as we thought the van was ours.

We were conned. Pure and simple.

If there is nothing we can do we will have to accept it. But we are very upset. The finance company have told us the agent did have a bad rep for misleading clients but they have gone bust so we have no recourse anyway.

I am just freaked that they are trying to make us sign a new 'Lease agreement' - which we will not do. Its making me wonder if i can indeed get out of the one i have......

inmypocketnottheirs

I don't understand why they are asking you to sign a new agreement?

I know that you feel that you were misled in what agreement you were signing, and I am sure that this experience will make you more careful in future. It is always the buyers responsibility to check the terms and conditions that they are signing - caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

As long as the goods were fit for purpose and of merchantable quality, then the seller has fulfilled their responsibilities.

Unfortunately I think you need to chalk this down to experience.

ilovebanksMCMLXXXI

jayne7868 wrote: »

Hi. I am new to this and would really appriciate any help.

We took out what we thought was a hire purchase agreement with vans direct 2.5 years ago.

The vans engine has exploded. It was warranted for 3 years or 110k miles - it has done 118k miles, nothing for a van like this.

We have contacted the finance lease company as vans direct have gone bust. We need to know if the finance company have any obligations as to the quallity of the van. They say as we did not take a maintainance contract, all work is our responcibility W were never offed this at point of sale as we 'thought' we were buying this.
They want all remaining payments for the next 25 months as an early settlement figure. We can not pay this and buy a new van. we will have to cease trading.

We are being pushed into signing a new contract with another leasing company (taking over from vans direct) as they say paperwork is wrong. ( We bought the van in my husbands name but payments come form a ltd company - Vans direct knew this as we had been trading as ltd for only 6 months at point of sale they said it was better for a credit rating. ) we wont do this, as we are uneasy about it.

Can we, as we have paid 35 of the 60 payments plus 3 as a deposit simply hand the van back without incurring bad credit? the agreement is covered by the consumer credit act1974.

Any help would be very very much appriciated

Hi

I'll try to answer your queries as directly as I can:

Even if you had maintenance on the vehicle that would not cover an engine failure. That is down to manufacturer warranty and if the cover is 3years/110k then at 118k the van is out of warranty - your only hope there is a gesture of goodwill from the manufacturer (i.e. they will contribute a percentage of the repair) and for that to even be considered the service history on the van would need to be spot-on.

If you hand the van back and do not pay further rentals you will definitely affect your credit rating.

When Vans Direct went out of business all of the contracts were handed over to another organisation but endless contracts were lost. I would suggest the new organisation want you to sign a new contract because they cannot uphold the old one.

My advice to you would be to request a copy of your original signed agreement and I would suspect they will struggle to provide you with that - 'IF' that is the case then you may well have found yourself a convenient 'get-out'.

Chances are the agreement you have is a Lease Purchase and not a Hire Purchase agreements. The majority of Vans Direct business was structured around Lease Purchase.

Best of luck

inmypocketnottheirs

That would be your best bet! No agreement, no contract.

Bev121

Does anyone have any advice on how to get out of a Operating Lease for a van? We cannot afford the payments and the finance company will not re-negotiate a lower repayment amount or extend the time period.
Does anyone have any advice on this topic? We don't know what to do, can anyone help?