Mis-sold? Do I have any rights?

cjno1

Hi, I'm looking for a quick bit of advice. I recently picked up a new BMW on a 4 year lease. When I mentioned to the sales guy that 4 years was probably too long, and that I didn't think I wanted to tie myself up for that long, he told me that a big selling point about the contract was that you could just hand the car back once you'd paid off half the finance value, which he said would only take "about 3 years".

I was satisfied with that and signed the contract. But I've since had a finance friend run the numbers for me and he said that, based on my monthly payments and interest rates, it will actually be month 43 before I've paid off half the value. This is not "about 3 years" in my book, and I feel like I've been mis-sold on that basis (especially since they would have known the exact month where I would have qualified, since the interest rate, finance amount and monthly payments are all fixed).

Given that this wasn't part of the written contract, do I have any rights here? Or am I consigned to keeping the car for an extra 7 months and I'll just have to learn my lesson for next time?

burlington6

What result are you after?

cjno1

Well, I guess ideally I'd like to be able to do what I was told I could, and hand the car back after 3 years.

k3lvc

What is your contract ? Is it actually a lease, a HP agreement, a PCP etc

What does your contract say about early settlement ?

burlington6

cjno1 wrote: »

Well, I guess ideally I'd like to be able to do what I was told I could, and hand the car back after 3 years.

I only ask because some people come on here using the ''miss sold'' stance and expect the deal should be voided and all their money returned even though they've used the vehicle for years.

cjno1

It's a PCP contract for 48 months, and it says that you can settle at any time by paying off the remainder required to reach 50% of the total finance balance (and hand the car back), or if you've already paid this much then you can hand the car back and walk away.

So the guy told me when I was looking at it that it would take about 3 years to get to that point with the regular monthly payments, so I would never need to keep the car for the full 4 years if I didn't want to.

mcpitman

Morning,

Suppose it's down to your interpretation of "about 3 years".

I'm sure even you admit, it may have been a mistake to sign a contract you eother didn't fully understand or hadn't worked out the numbers yourself.

At the end of the day you agreed to a 4 year contract, so why you would agree this on the basis you knew you wanted to exit at year 3 is not quite clear here.

cjno1

burlington6 wrote: »

I only ask because some people come on here using the ''miss sold'' stance and expect the deal should be voided and all their money returned even though they've used the vehicle for years.

No I'm not looking for anything ridiculous, I'm happy with the car and my payments, etc. It's just that I've found out I need to keep it for another 7 months longer than I was led to believe, so I wondered if I had any right to complain (or if there was any point, given that it's just a verbal comment) and make them honour that.

cjno1

mcpitman wrote: »

Morning,

Suppose it's down to your interpretation of "about 3 years".

I'm sure even you admit, it may have been a mistake to sign a contract you eother didn't fully understand or hadn't worked out the numbers yourself.

At the end of the day you agreed to a 4 year contract, so why you would agree this on the basis you knew you wanted to exit at year 3 is not quite clear here.

Thanks, I thought that this may be the case, I understand it's my own fault for not calculating these first, but I was going on the strength of what the guy told me. Lesson learned, I guess.

Although I would contest that "about 3 years" is never going to mean 3 years and 7 months when we were only discussing a 4 year period. Maybe if it was 20 years or 50 years then "about 3 years" could mean that, but not such a short period.

neilmcl

cjno1 wrote: »

Well, I guess ideally I'd like to be able to do what I was told I could, and hand the car back after 3 years.

Then increase your monthly payments.

mcpitman

cjno1 wrote: »

Thanks, I thought that this may be the case, I understand it's my own fault for not calculating these first, but I was going on the strength of what the guy told me. Lesson learned, I guess.

Seems to be the case, scratch it up to experience.

Oh and in future, remember 99.9% of sales people will lie verbally as you can't realy hold them to account on it!