Defaulted on an car payment unknowingly

JStar3020

Evening all, 
I financed a Hyundai through my local dealership on a 4 Year deal. The two year mark was reached in Feb this year, we decided to voluntarily terminate the agreement, they collected the car, no additional charges and there was a balance of £1000.00 to pay. Santander contacted us to make the final payment and they were happy for the payment to be spread over 5 months due to the pandemic etc.. Well out of the blue get an email from Experian to say that there is a default on the credit file, logged in and hyundai have stated we defaulted on a balloon payment. We disputed this with Hyundai on the 7th July, it was only logged on their system on the 11th Aug and today they sent an email saying its because we didn't pay the balance within 90 days which we did not know about. I will be speaking to the ICO, complaining to Hyundai and Santander, just wondering if anyone could recommend how to resolve this as it is completely unfair and with the default staying on file for 7 years there will not be a hope in hell of trying to apply for a mortgage with the stamp duty freeze etc! We did not receive a letter stating the notice of default.. All we received was a letter from Santander asking to make arrangements to pay... thanks  

D3xt3r5L4b

What was the reason for the default?

[Deleted User]

It's very unusual to be able to VT at the 2 year point on a 4 year finance deal - did you put down a very large deposit?

MinuteNoodles

JStar3020 said:

Evening all, 
I financed a Hyundai through my local dealership on a 4 Year deal. The two year mark was reached in Feb this year, we decided to voluntarily terminate the agreement, they collected the car, no additional charges and there was a balance of £1000.00 to pay

You can't VT until you've paid 50% of the cost of the FULL PRICE OF THE CAR, not just half of the period of the PCP or half of the balance of the part that was PCP'd, it also includes factoring in the balloon payment. So for example:

Full price of car £10,000

Deposit: £1000

Amount financed on PCP: £5000

Final Balloon Payment: £4000

You can't VT until you've paid a total of £5000 via the deposit and £4000 paid through PCP. It isn't when you've paid £2500 of the £5000 PCP.