Car dealership refusing to help cancel car finance with the finance company!

Herzlos

If the manager is 'conveniently not in' when you phone, your best bet is to go in person and try and figure out what the resolution is. It's a lot harder to ignore someone standing on the sales floor, and they aren't going to want any potential customers hearing your side of the story.
But keep it civil, and frame it in a "What can we do to resolve this?" Take a print out of what you've got from the finance company to show that the dealer needs to contact the finance company.

Do you have it in writing that the sale of the car was cancelled?
Are they part of a bigger chain?

I suspect the dealer is sitting on the money and is reluctant to send it back to the finance company until the plate change sales come in.

Okell

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81876224#Comment_81876224

Didn't the OP say that the dealer had agreed to cancel the sale but that the OP's partner would forfeit the £500 deposit?

I've not read any suggestion from the OP that the dealer is trying to hold the OP's partner to the car purchase

Okell

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81879104#Comment_81879104

Yes.

I feel like I must be missing something obvious here, but I'm not sure why the finance company told the OP's partner that only the dealer could cancel the finance agreement.

Surely only the OP's partner and the finance company are parties to the finance agreement, and only the Op's partner can exercise their consumer right to cancel the finance agreement - the dealer can't do that.

Did the finance company actually tell the OP's partner that he had to separately cancel the purchase agreement with the dealer, not just cancel the finnace agreement with the finance company?

Seems to me that the OP's partner has successfully cancelled the car purchase from the dealer (at the cost of a lost £500 deposit) and has done all he can to cancel the finance agreement.

Shouldn;t the finance company now be recovering their outlay from the dealer?

I think the OP's partner ought to be questioning the finance company more closely as to why they aren't recognising his statutory right to cancel the finance agreement. I'm not sure that has anything to do with the dealer.

born_again

Could this be more that finance co have paid dealer or need confirmation, not to pay dealer? & they want the dealer to confirm it is cancelled.

As OP has cancelled agreement with finance co 🤷‍♀️

This is not a main stream lender they are dealing with. Possible that most of their finance is actually commercial.

Okell

I think the OP and their partner need to go back to the finance company and ask them to clarify what they mean by getting the dealer "to cancel the agreement".

The only person who can cancel the agreement is the OP's partner, and they've already done that so far as I can see.

Sounds to me like all three parties are talking at cross-puposes to each other or it's a case of send three and fourpence we're going to a dance… [Edit: and that there might be some mixing up of the separate sale/purchase agreement and the finance agreement]

The OP has confirmed this is a consumer agreement?

Bandmartian65

hi all, apologises for the lack of response on the matter. We finally managed to get the situation resolved which is amazing news. My partner spoke to citizens advice bureau who advised that it was best to rewrite another complaint letter re-stating the points and including updated information on the situation as the first complaint letter my partner wrote didn’t include all of the information. We then also reported both the finance company and the dealership to trading standards, as well as the motoring ombudsman. Speaking to citizens advice bureau as well as some legal advice, we found that the finance company were in breach of the agreement, and that my partner couldn’t be charged for a vehicle he didn’t have.

My partner also included in the complaint screenshots and evidence that one vehicle was still being traded on different websites, as well as highlighting the fact that the dealership and the finance company had brilliant communication when it came to putting the sale through but not now there’s a problem. We were also advised not to go to the dealership directly, and keep all communication on email for a paper trail. In the complaint my partner also stated that he would be cancelling the direct debit and taking it to the financial ombudsman if the situation was not sorted as we had done all the steps the finance company had told us to do.

The finance company ended up emailing back a few days ago siding with us and stated how conveniently they received a call from the dealership stating that they are not proceeding with the sale of the Q5 so my partner is not liable for anything.

thank you all for your help and advice, this has been a huge learning curve for my partner and I- we’re now trying to contest the £500 deposit he paid.