Black Horse Loan Settlement Advice

the_great_escape

Hi - first post so please be gentle!

I have a car loan / lease agreement with Black Horse. During the bad weather in December I had a crash and the car was written off by the insurer.

Direct Line (the insurance co.) where supposed to pay BH the agreed value (which by the way I had to spend over an hour on the phone with the loss assessor arguing the value up from £4k to £5.7k - so time well spent but a real pain).

Anyway - I notified BH immediately (as it's their security after all), and they have sent me a settlement value of £7.2k to I have a 'shortfall' of £1.5k. Direct Line paid me (despite my explicit instructions and notification of the all of the BH details including agreement number etc) so I have the £5.6 sitting in my saving account. I want to settle ASAP as this will release £200 a month back into my finances.

I have never missed a payment and have had the agreement for just over a year. I can afford to keep making the monthly payments of £197, but I cant easily lay my hands on £1.5k.

Does anyone have any experience with how they will handle this, can I keep paying the £197 for 6 months, or will they re-finance and try and add another set of fees and interest, or will they simply insist i settle in full or they send the 'boys' round?

Thanks in advance.

Consumerist

I would say that, from the perspective of BH, you have settled their loan early.

From the perspective of the insurer, you are their customer so they should settle with you.

Unless you took out additional insurance to protect yourself in this situation then it would seem you will be liable for the shortfall. How you settle this with BH is for you to negotiate with them bearing in mind they no longer have the security originally offered.

I suggest you call BH to negotiate how to settle. Make sure you get written confirmation of anything you agree between you. This will avoid any later misunderstandings.

the_great_escape

Thank you that all makes sense - however what I wanted to understand in advance of talking to them is what other peoples experience had been, based on that I will either go with a 'new' agreement with them to cover the £1.5 over a few months, or look elsewhere for a small loan to cover the £1.5. Or better still if there was any 'movement' from their basic settlement calculation without impacting credit file etc.

I am not looking for avoidance tips (I entered into the agreement, I can still afford the re-payments and I want a clean a mutually acceptable solution) , I just always prefer to understand how a business operates before entering into any formal negotiations of this sort. For example - if they always play hard-ball and refuse to move from their initial position, then I will sell something to raise the cash, if they can be persuaded to re-finance short term at a reduced APR, that works for me as well.

Consumerist

If you go to the Search bar at the top of the page and enter "Black Horse" or "BH" as the search keyword then select "Forum" from the drop-down menu to its right, you will be able to read of the experiences of others. It may take some time but it will give you an idea of what to expect from them.

Good luck. I hope things pan-out ok for you.

lvm

Hey,

I've actually just given my car to a Black Horse approved auction site so that I could end the agreement. Basically, they get the car back and I don't pay any more. They will assess the car to see that it's of a reasonable condition for age etc so apart from that, all settled up.

I phoned to ask about the direct debit and I was told that I should just cancel it and they would write to me when they have the paperwork I needed to send and they'd tell me either my finance is clear or I have e.g. £300 to pay for poor condition of car. The woman then said "but don't worry, we wouldn't ask you to pay this in a lump sum, we'd come to some mutual arrangement for money to be paid back over time."

So in your case, it would definitely be the same. Think they understand that if you've had to take finance out to buy a car in the first place, you're not going to have that money to pay off anyway.

But you can easily give them a call as they were rather helpful - 0844 824 8888.

Hope that helps!

the_great_escape

Thats great advice both of you - and particularly useful to hear from someone who has had roughly similar circumstances (lisamckinney) thank you both very much - off to do some research as suggested now. Many thanks.

PNPSUKNET

Years ago my bike was stolen which was on hp, they will come to an agreement