Voluntary termination and charges

motorguy

maxmycardagain wrote: »

I owe £10K balance and its worth £10K if i found a buyer, and thats a big if, and it wouldnt be HPi clear so any buyer would have to be verytrusting

And your point?

Very different to the O/Ps situation.

And theres no issue with selling a car on finance - the buyer simply pays the finance company direct. Simples.

facade

maxmycardagain wrote: »

Im past halfway on a OTR price of £20K (ins all charges/interest/DVLA) etc, at 2 years through a 5 year finance, partly cos i paid the VAT upfront as deposit (and reclaimed it), when i asked about a handback i was told "so long as youve looked after it"...............its done 60K but ive looked after it....lol

Assuming you were allowed to VT it, you have to be past halfway on the actual amount financed, the deposit doesn't count.

If you buy a £16,000 car with a £6000 deposit, and £10,000 on 0% finance, you can VT it when you have paid the finance company £5000 of the £10,000 they stumped up, not when you have paid them £2,000 (to make half of the £16,000 OTR price)

molerat

Gazfocus, you need ensure you use the correct terminology when handing back.

Early termination means you hand it back, they sell at auction and you have to pay the difference between what they get and what is owed plus charges.
Voluntary termination, a right under the CCA, means you hand it back and are only responsible for 50% of the agreement (or what you have already paid if more) cost plus any charges due to not taking reasonable care of the vehicle. To VT you need to send them a template letter which can be found by googling.

gazfocus

Thanks - my query is though, how do the finance company determine how much to charge me for not taking reasonable care of the car? I've just been for a quote to get everything sorted and the price of the bonnet has gone up since I last got a quote soI'm now looking at around £650 for the repair.

Also, the car has a scraped bumper when I bought it...will they try and pin that on me too?

jlfrs

I whip out your agreement pronto to see what the t's and c's are on the vehicle's return.

I have done 4 PCP arrangements in the past and it should be a matter of completing a form to confirm the vehicle has not been in any serious accident and agreeing to pay for excess mileage and any damage beyond wear and tear.
Ask the finance company for a copy of their wear and tear document and descriptions (usually stone chips, wheel scrapes and light scuffs.
They should also have a tariff for their charges to fix anything outside of this, including dents to panels, etc.
That should give you some idea of what you're in for and you can take a view on whether you pay them to fix the damage, pay yourself or do it under insurance.
There is no point fibbing either - they will arrange a time and place to collect the vehicle and will inspect it for damage. With the exception of the damage and excess mileage you agreed to stump up for when originally taking out the agreement and with the form they will send you for return, there should be nothing else to pay. In other words, they can't come back 3 months later after they've auctioned it off and hit you for £1000.

System

gazfocus wrote: »

I should have mentioned we're talking about a car that's worth about £1700 with £2500 finance left on it.

Worth £1700 retail? So around £1300 at auction with a couple of hundred quid of sellers fees to take off that and that's without all the body damage which is likely to see a fair chunk taken off. If the finance company sees more than £900 from the auction after expenses I'd be surprised.

MobileSaver

jlfrs wrote: »

I have done 4 PCP arrangements in the past and it should be a matter of completing a form to confirm the vehicle has not been in any serious accident and agreeing to pay for excess mileage and any damage beyond wear and tear.

For the avoidance of doubt, there is a world of difference between invoking your Statutory rights under a "Voluntary Termination" and handing back the car under any other circumstances.

Voluntary Termination means pretty much all terms and conditions originally agreed to become null and void. Handing back the car under any other circumstances means all original terms, conditions and importantly charges/fees have to be abided by.

The fly in the ointment in the OP's case is that the bonnet is damaged but I have to admit I'm struggling to see how a bonnet repair to a car worth £1700 can be as high as £650! OP, you do know the bonnet does not have to be showroom perfect? It just has to be "reasonable" for the age of the car, can a ChipsAway type specialist not just knock the dent out for a fraction of the cost?