Car Repossession Advice

symmndarcy

Hi All,

Some advice/info required from all you knowledgable people.

I took a car on HP in October but missed a months worth of payment in December - I had an incident that required me to have an MRI scan and because going through NHS would have taken months I decided to go private so couldn't afford the payment. I sent a recorded delivered letter to the finance company advising of this. However, they said they were going to repossess - I phoned them up and they said can I provide proof of this and they could come to some arrangement. Whilst waiting for a receipt from the hospital the finance company have decided to reposses the car. I have spoken to them and they have said in order to get the car back I would need to pay the months arrears and another months worth of payment to cover their costs of vehicle recovery. They also said there will be a device fitted to the car that will alert me if I miss a payment and code not entered into it. Now, my questions really are whether or not to get the car back (my credit file is already trashed, due to a car accident) or to let them keep it and be left with any outstanding balance. Now if I do give the car back, does anyone know if the outstanding balance then becomes akin to a personal loan or is it still classed as a HP loan?

Thanks for your time in reading this and any help you may be able to give.

Tixy

Depends on whether you need the car and can afford the repayments going forward. If you only missed one payment on this 1 agreement then it doesn't sound like your credit rating is trashed (unless you also couldn't keep up with other payments to other creditors).

It also depends on how much you are likely to end up needing to pay if they do reposses and sell the car at auction - and how big a loss that will be - but of course thats a figure that it will be very difficult to try to estimate.

If the car is reposssed the remaining balance becomes unsecured as there is nothing left for the loan to be secured on.

symmndarcy

Thanks Tixy - do you know (or educated guess) if the outstanding balance would then be paid through the current agreement or could it be changed. For example I am currently paying the finance over 3 years but if car is repossessed and becomes unsecured then do I need to agree to a new payment plan or is automatically the same one with same monthly payments?