Missed Payment Rights

Picketfence79

In April last year I took a covid payment break from my mini financial monthly loan. At the time they told me to cancel my direct debit. Following a 3 month break they wrote to me and said my monthly payments would be reinstated and I took the option to add the payment break payments at the end of my agreement. Since then I have had loan statements and have even had contact with mini financial on two occasions for settlement figures. Yesterday they sent me a bill for £5500 saying I hadn’t made any payments for 18 months. When I checked the billing account the loan payments hadn’t been taken. (Without going into it my husband has been really ill and it’s his bank account it comes from and for one reason or another he hasn’t noticed) the bank hadn’t notified us of any rejected payments as there wasn’t a direct debit set up and therefore we assumed everything was ok. Mini financial hadn’t contacted me at all and actually clearly not noticed that these payments weren’t being made as on two occasions the dealer had spoken with them about changing my car and there was no discussion of missed payments. They should have sent me a new direct debit mandate after my covid break as they told me to cancel my direct debit. I am not able to set up a direct debit to them, they have to instigate it. Equally when the first payment was missed they should have contacted me. They admitted on the phone that no contact attempts have been made and no written communication and said they knew this was wrong but I have to pay the money straight away (which I don’t have) just looking for a bit of advice and thoughts really on where I stand legally with this and how liable am I for this situation? I know it’s ridiculous that we haven’t noticed the payments not coming out but honestly there is a really good reason for that 😢

[Deleted User]

You're liable for all the missed payments.

If you can't afford to make up the payments, you'll need to make a repayment arrangement.

It will be a major negative on your credit files, but they may already have defaulted you, in which case it won't matter.

kaMelo

Picketfence79 said:

In April last year I took a covid payment break from my mini financial monthly loan. At the time they told me to cancel my direct debit.Since then I have had loan statements and have even had contact with mini financial on two occasions for settlement figures. Yesterday they sent me a bill for £5500 saying I hadn’t made any payments for 18 months. When I checked the billing account the loan payments hadn’t been taken. (Without going into it my husband has been really ill and it’s his bank account it comes from and for one reason or another he hasn’t noticed) the bank hadn’t notified us of any rejected payments as there wasn’t a direct debit set up and therefore we assumed everything was ok. Mini financial hadn’t contacted me at all and actually clearly not noticed that these payments weren’t being made as on two occasions the dealer had spoken with them about changing my car and there was no discussion of missed payments. They should have sent me a new direct debit mandate after my covid break as they told me to cancel my direct debit. I am not able to set up a direct debit to them, they have to instigate it. Equally when the first payment was missed they should have contacted me. They admitted on the phone that no contact attempts have been made and no written communication and said they knew this was wrong but I have to pay the money straight away (which I don’t have) just looking for a bit of advice and thoughts really on where I stand legally with this and how liable am I for this situation? I know it’s ridiculous that we haven’t noticed the payments not coming out but honestly there is a really good reason for that 😢

Firistly, asking you to cancel the direct debit was terrible advice,  why did they suggest you cancel the direct debit?
Secondly, and more importantly, you  stated 
" Following a 3 month break they wrote to me and said my monthly payments would be reinstated and I took the option to add the payment break payments at the end of my agreement."   Did you definitely communicate that choice to them and know for sure that they received it? If you did and they received it then you had a repayment strategy in place and they could reinstate the original direct debit as they had your agreement to do so. There would be no need for a new direct debit mandate.



The whole problem occurred because of the cancelled direct debit, hence why it's always good advice to always leave any direct debit in place until you are absolutely sure there is no need for it any more. In your case there was always going to be a need after the payment holiday which is why the advice to cancel it was so terrible and the start of all the problems, that would be my first question to ask of them and secondly, when notified of your choice to repay the payment holiday why didn't they set up the direct debit again.




Having said all that and I know you said you've a lot going on at the moment but, nothing absolves you from your responsibility to keep on top of payments or at least notice whether they have or have not been taken.