Dealer-bought car with outstanding finance - advice pls

clevortrever

Hi,

Have paid a (relatively small) deposit on a used car to a large franchised dealer. Ran an HPI check on the car and found that there was outstanding money owing to a finance company. The finance company told us the dealer had bought the car on finance and still owed money on it. The dealership subsequently confirmed this but insist they will not pay off the finance until we have paid for them for the car and that we will receive confirmation of the finance being cleared a few days later. They say this is normal practice. I am concerned that we will have nothing to hold the dealer to paying off the finance once we have paid them all the money and therefore run the risk of having the finance company claim the money/car back from us. Is this normal practice on the dealer's part? What should we do?

neilmcl

There'll probably be no issue but as always if in doubt walk away.

colino

Do you think Tesco owns everything on its shelves? Why should another business, say a car trader, be any different? Sounds like rampant paranoia HPiing a car from a, "large, franchised dealer".

motorguy

clevortrever wrote: »

Hi,

Have paid a (relatively small) deposit on a used car to a large franchised dealer. Ran an HPI check on the car and found that there was outstanding money owing to a finance company. The finance company told us the dealer had bought the car on finance and still owed money on it. The dealership subsequently confirmed this but insist they will not pay off the finance until we have paid for them for the car and that we will receive confirmation of the finance being cleared a few days later. They say this is normal practice. I am concerned that we will have nothing to hold the dealer to paying off the finance once we have paid them all the money and therefore run the risk of having the finance company claim the money/car back from us. Is this normal practice on the dealer's part? What should we do?

Its standard practice and nothing to worry about. It will be up to the dealer to sort out the finance outstanding.

arcon5

The problem is now you know of the outstanding finance, if they don't pay the finance company they can take the car. It's only if you are unaware of finance on a vehicle when buying from a dealer you have protection.

Whether you take the risk or not depends on how large the dealer are and how secure they are. If they are in fact a large dealership it's probably fine - if they appear to be a fly by night then stay clear.

arcon5

colino wrote: »

Do you think Tesco owns everything on its shelves? Why should another business, say a car trader, be any different? Sounds like rampant paranoia HPiing a car from a, "large, franchised dealer".

The risk is hardly comparable.

No company is too large to fail. It's hardly paranoia to want a fuller picture of the product your buying

chris-j

pgilc1 wrote: »

Its standard practice and nothing to worry about. It will be up to the dealer to sort out the finance outstanding.

How is this standard practice. If I sold a car on HP to a dealer I expect the dealer to pay off the finance ofherwise the finance company will still come after me for monthly payments. The dealer not likely to continue making the payments till they sell car on and if it takes over a month to sell on then finance company going to default the person who has the finance contract.

Splott

Pretty much all dealerships of relatively new stuff buy their entire stock on finance. They then repay it when the car sells. Evans Halwshaw and Quicks use BMW Finance so pretty much every car you do a HPI check on from them will show up as BMW Finance.

My car did that I bought from Quicks when I HPI checked it prior to purchase. I phoned up BMW Finance who explained everything to me.

LandyAndy

Splott wrote: »

Pretty much all dealerships of relatively new stuff buy their entire stock on finance. They then repay it when the car sells. Evans Halwshaw and Quicks use BMW Finance so pretty much every car you do a HPI check on from them will show up as BMW Finance.

My car did that I bought from Quicks when I HPI checked it prior to purchase. I phoned up BMW Finance who explained everything to me.

Exactly this. How could a dealer tie up hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds in working capital to finance their forecourt stock?

mountainofdebt

chris-j wrote: »

If I sold a car on HP to a dealer I expect the dealer to pay off the finance ofherwise the finance company will still come after me for monthly payments.

tbh I would expect the dealer to insist on doing a HP check before they paid you for the car. If the car isn't HP cleared then you wouldn't get the payment for the vehicle.