car loan difficulty

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rossiewoman

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this is my first post here.
i am at my wits end and any advice would be very well received
i bought a new car through a garage on hire purchase in summer 2007. the deal was i was to pay 600 per month for 2 years and then a bubble payment of 20,000 euro at the end of the 2 years. i never missed a payment

hindsight is wonderful! unfortunately during those 2 years we had much turmoil and stress.my husband who had been self employed has had no work for the last 1.5 years and gets no financial support, so i am the main breadwinner for the household.

i explained to the bank in summer 2009 that i could not meet the balloon payment and MABS got involved on my behalf. eventually, and after being subjected to awful aggressive phonecalls, they agreed to accept 300 euro per month for 1 year.i never missed a payment during the year.

when the year came to an end, the aggression started again. i explained that i could not make higher payments. they wanted 580 euro per month. i said that paying 300 was already a struggle

they told me that they would take the car off me as they would have no problem selling it. they wanted an increase to 400 euro per month so even though we are struggling to put food on the table here and keep all bills paid, i agreed.

i have made the 1st payment of 400 this month. i got a phonecall from a very unpleasant young man today who told me that this payment will be acceptable for 6 months and then it will be increased to 650 per month as they will not accept any more reschedules.

i just dont know what to do. our credit rating is bad due to previous mortgage arrears that we have now cleared. i am so upset. i know i have until next march to work something out but i am so sick of all of this. if i sold the car i would get less than what i still owe on it

please, if anyone has any advice will you pass it on
thanks
 
You mentioned that the said they would take the car-- if they did , would that wipe the debt?
 
if they took the car and sold it they would get far less for it than what i owe and i assume that i would be liable to pay the outstanding amount? but if they take the car, i wont have any transport at all. i wouldnt be able to get another laon to get another car because of poor credit rating and all of our savings are gone...so i dont know what to do
 
Have you got a copy of the HP agreement? --Does the half rule apply?- in which case you should be able to just hand the car back given that you have paid approx half the full agreement at this stage. BTW, I do not think you will be able to sell the car yourself if it is under a HP agreement as you are technically only hiring it until the balloon payment is made. someone else might correct me if I am wrong....

Buy an old car with a good NCT if you can
 
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thanks for the reply WindUp. i looked at the agreement and i think teh ahlf rule would apply, but the problem then is i would have no transport and we haven't a cent to put towards buying another car, no matter how old it is.
thanks again
 
You should remind your 'lender' of section 11 of the non fatal offence against the person act.
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1997/en/act/pub/0026/sec0011.html

If you like, pay what you can towards the car finance per month. Let them bring you to court as no judge will do anything to you once you're making an effort. Beware though as those slimeballs will threaten you with court action and 3rd party debt collectors with which you have no contract so just ignore them.
They might try to steal 'repossess' your car also so keep it off the main road when parking.
Have a read of Mary Crofts book on this site
http://spiritualeconomicsnow.net/

Dont be getting stressed out over money and/or Financial Institutions.
 
I was put in a similar position by BOI over a personal loan.

Redundancy, reduced repayments etc etc and while everything was agreed with them in writing I got a letter from a debt collection solicitor a few weeks ago completely out of the blue (i had kept up payments, with none missed and had received no correspondence from BOI saying they were engaging solicitors) demanding full payment of the loan. I replied back after finding out as much as possible about the legal side of things as regards them agreeing to reduced repayments etc etc etc and now I have received a letter back from the solicitors realising they're in the wrong apologising for their actions. I have since contacted BOI questioning their actions.

Try not to be too stressed as it is very very unlikely that any judge will do anything to you since you are making the agreed payments.
 
It is not acceptable for the bank to be harrassing you if you are making every effort to pay back your loan. I would make a formal complaint to the bank and if they do not give a satisfactory response, I would refer my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman. If you are making payments every month (even if they're not as much as the bank wants) then I think you might have good grounds for a complaint. Good luck!
 
thanks for all the replies
redbhoy...what section 11 in plain english...i cant make head nor tail of it

i know i shouldn t be getting upset about this to the extent that i am but i really hate being in this predicament and feel like its constantly on my mind

just wondering though, if i made a complaint, would tht make things worse for me?
 
rossiewoman said:
thanks for all the replies
redbhoy...what section 11 in plain english...i cant make head nor tail of it

i know i shouldn t be getting upset about this to the extent that i am but i really hate being in this predicament and feel like its constantly on my mind

just wondering though, if i made a complaint, would tht make things worse for me?
Click to expand...

Basically no-one can chase you over a debt if it harms your health. I quoted this to an insurance company who were harassing me and then I was treated with kid gloves. (there really are rules there to protect people, you just need to go out and look for them)
 
Hi Rossiewoman.
Don't let this stress you out. There are literally thousands of people in this situation, and the Banks / Finanace Companies do not want all of these cars back!! It should be possible to sort something mutually agreeable to both parties.

It's important as pointed out by Demoivre that you state
Make / Model/ Year of Car and current condition - also your best estimate of current value. I can confirm this back to you based on a large set of data which I have.
The details from the original Finance Agreement ( I presume it is Hire Purchase)
- Cash Price , trade in / deposit / charges and most importantly, Hire Purchase Price.
Also state 1/2 Hire purchase price as documented on your agreement.
Please also detail your instalment schedule (e.g. 36 X 999 followed by 1 x 20,000)
Finally , it might help if you state which Finance Company you have the Agreement with, as each have their own policies of dealing with these cases - it might help in deciding best approach for you.
If you post back the details above - I'll see what may be the best way to deal with it.
 
thanks guys. do i just say to them that its affecting my health?....i dont think they would be too bothered to be honest


bazzer, could i pm you those details because i'm new to online forums and not sure about posting details publicly? no problem if not

thanks
 
It is up to you to decide what you post in the public forum. I can't see how any of the information suggested by bazzer could identify you.

If you send them by PM, you will get the view of bazzer on these details. If you post them in public, you will get the views of many others. Take your pick.
 
I agree with Complainer ... the details won't identify you or compromise your position. If you post these details up here , I can give you back my opinion on the best way to proceed from knowledge of the day to day operations of the various Finance houses and their MO's in dealing with these situations. Posting here will let others give their opinions too. Ideally you will come to a compromise with the Finance Company which will be mutually acceptable to both of you ... I think that if you post the details requested in my last post above , this will help in coming up with the best strategy for you to propose to the Finance Company - as I said before , if there is any way of keeping the agreement alive , they will do that rather than take back a highly depreciated car and sell it at a significant loss.
 
If I've done the maths right, you still owe around €16k. Without knowing the full details of the car, if you sold it, you could still probably get a fair bit of that. To me your options are

Sell the car, pay off as much as you can and reschedule the remainder.
Get a credit union loan for a smaller more affordable 2nd car
Get a credit union loan to pay off the €16k and don't sell the car
 
All - under the terms of a Hire Purchase agreement the hirer cannot sell the vehicle. That's why it's important to understand the figures.
If the hirer has paid > 1/3 of the Hire purchase price, the Owner CANNOT repossess the asset without a court order , which in the current environment might take up to a year to get!
The hirer in any case is only liable up to 1/2 of the HP price , and can hand back the car without any liability beyond 1/2 the HP price (only extra would be cost of repairing any non regular damage to the car)
It's quite scary really how little people know about Hire Purchase agreements .... so it's not a good idea to be advising people to do things (e.g. sell the car ) that will attract Fraud / Criminal proceedings being taken against them!!
 
Thought this my cheer up original poster or at least make her realise that all financial institutions appear unaware that we are in a recession. You're not alone in dealing with hypocrisy.
Just had the strangest of calls with Money Lending institution. Am in arrears and have tried to come to a new repayment schedule with them, they did not respond to my letter so I made payments any way. They have now told me that as I am in arrears they are no longer in a position to come to a new schedule of repayments, I asked them how much the arrears were and if I clear them will they discuss it with me then - wait for it...they said "NO". I clarified with them "I am offering to clear arrears and reschedule repayments, but you can't do that" They replied "yes, it doesn't matter if you clear arrears we still won't enter into any new agreement with you". I told them take me to court, I will gladly take pleasure in watching a Judge laugh them out of court. I pointed out that in this current economic climate were a person has confirmed financially difficulties and has tried to come to an arrangement which they are refusing on the basis of the account being in arrears and the person wants to clear arrears and they won't accommodate them, I advised them that they really need to re-think their policy!!! Am I being unreasonable?
 
thanks everyone for all of the advice. i realise that many of you went to a lot of trouble to post and the information in them is great

i'm going to put this issue on hold for a while. i'm due my baby in few weeks and feeling rotten and to be honest i haven't the energy to type out all of the information that bazzer asked for.

i think the stress of it all has taken its toll on me. i have until next february anyway until i need to talk to the abnk again. until then i will make the payments every month

thanks again. i do appreciate all posts
 
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