How to complain about excessive interest rates

Thunder_Pants

Hello,

We stupidly agreed to a loan with Shawbrook for repayment of our windows installed by Britelite.

I have received our annual statement and we will be paying £7050 interest on a £5395 loan so far we’ve repaid about £7900 with a balance outstanding £3498.

This feels like usury in this current climate. we haven’t defaulted but surely charging excessive interest rates is an exploitation by the lender is this legal? 

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

TheSpectator

A bit context would be helpful, what is the APR. How long is the agreement for?

At the end of the day they offered a rate, you accepted it, nothing illegal about it. Unless there is any element of unaffordable lending then not much you can do. Can't you get another loan to settle that one?

Ayr_Rage

The APR and total amount payable would have been available before you committed to taking the loan, therefore the onus was on you to decide if it was acceptable and affordable.

There is no exploitation involved at all, you made your choice.

molerat

Even a good rate over an extended period would be expensive.

MEM62

Ayr_Rage said:

The APR and total amount payable would have been available before you committed to taking the loan. therefore the onus was on you to decide if it was acceptable and affordable.

Absolutely this!  

You would have known what the terms were before you signed up to them.  If they were unacceptable then you should not have agreed to them.  

dumpster_fire2025

Thunder_Pants said:

Hello,

We stupidly agreed to a loan with Shawbrook for repayment of our windows installed by Britelite.

I have received our annual statement and we will be paying £7050 interest on a £5395 loan so far we’ve repaid about £7900 with a balance outstanding £3498.

This feels like usury in this current climate. we haven’t defaulted but surely charging excessive interest rates is an exploitation by the lender is this legal? 

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

The only form of borrowing that has any government interference on interest charged is short-term loans (i.e payday loans), where the maximum interest + fees chanre is capped at an amount equal to the capital borrowed.

Nothing else has a cap on interest, and realistically, I don't see why they should. Credit agreements have been heavily regulated for a long time, and the interest rate, amount of interest payable and the total amount payable are very clearly visible on the agreements you are provided with.

The time to question this was before you took out the loan, not years later.

Caz3121

what term did you choose to take this over...this impacts greatly the amount of interest paid
based on your numbers if you took this over 5 years then the interest rate will be about 40%
if you took it over 25 years then it is under 8%
what is the term and APR?