Please help! DH has made a big mistake when handing back our leased car!

[moneyworries9]

Our leased car has 2 chips on it that we were fully prepared to get charged for. On the day of returning the car, we had a bit of a drama. DH was supposed to take the car to get it washed first thing but one of our DC caught a sickness bug so DH had to take my eldest to school which threw the whole plan out. When the collection guys called to say they were almost at our house, I had to apologise as DH was in the queue to get the car washed. They said just to tell him to drive home and not to worry about washing it as it will get washed by them anyway.

When DH got home, the guy completed a thorough inspection of the car. DH is quite precious about his cars and had cleaned the inside the day before, which was immaculate. The guy finished the inspection and said to DH "you'll get charged any money for this, it's in great condition and the guys will put the 2 chips down as fair wear & tear.

Anyway, DH signed the paperwork and was given his copy. Stupidly, DH didn't read what the guy had written about the condition of the car on the paperwork until after he signed it and the guy had left 😩 basically, he has detailed scratches on loads of the panels where we know there weren't any and he has written that the interior and exterior were dirty.

Now we are worrying that at any moment we could be hit with a huge bill.

Does anyone know how long the leasing company have to come back to us with the charges? We are really worrying about this now 😔

There’s an expectation of wear and tear (which includes minor surface scratches) with leased cars. Tell them you’ll pay for the chips but will be disputing the rest.

it's in great condition and the guys will put the 2 chips down as fair wear & tear

If they said that, you might not get charged anything. The last car I sent back was scuffed and scratched all over the place but the man who assessed the condition said most of it was fair wear and tear and I only had to pay about £60.

But signing paperwork like this without reading it is unbelieveable, especially as it is full of untruths. Why on earth didn't he read it?

I don’t understand how he wrote all that when he told your DH it was in great condition. didn’t you phone them straight away to query it?

I challenged mine on the day when they said there was a bump and I thought it was dirt. They then cancelled all the fees including the ones I was expecting for cleaning it!
Not sure if you can challenge after the fact but might be worth a try. It was several weeks before they actually let me know.

Honestly, it's been so stupid of DH to sign without reading it. He is beating himself up over it but just took what the guy was telling him in good faith.

The problem is, we don't want to start querying it all as, at this point, we haven't been charged anything and there's a chance we won't be charged.

We are obviously just worrying that at some point they could hit us with a big bill. I'm really just curious - after they take the car back, how long do they have to bill us? Or how long does it usually take to receive the bill?

Not sure how it works when you've been present and signed the paperwork but when I handed my old car back the bloke who was meant to inspect it was sick so didn't look at it until the next day, I just dropped it and left. The damage was about £140 to start with including a scuffed alloy I was prepared to pay for, I had no issues with this. Then they took it somewhere else and reinspected it and added a load more damage onto it totalling almost £500. One thing was for only giving back one key, despite the first inspection confirming I'd given back 2. There was about 3 other things they added, a massive scuff on the back panel that wasn't there before, a cracked wing mirror casing that also wasn't there. They changed the severity of some of the dink's and minor surface scratches too. I challenged it on the basis it wasn't inspected when I dropped it off, I hadn't signed anything to confirm that was the condition I'd handed it back in and it wasn't my fault that the bloke wasn't there. I wasn't offered another appointment to come back, it was left in a massive yard with about 500 other cars and fork lift trucks driving around and was driven over 100 miles between the first and second inspection, over a week later so was likely sat in that same yard, so how can they claim the extra damage was 'missed' the first time. They couldn't prove it hadn't happed in that yard. I paid £100 for the alloy and 1 other scratch I think. Please look online at the BVRLA fair wear and tear guide...they can only charge for scratches/dink's that are a certain depth/length or if they go over more than 1 body panel if I remember rightly.

Also my car was filthy but they said it didn't matter when I initially booked my appointment and I wasn't charged for cleaning anyway.

It also took about a month I think to hear back 'confining charges'. Took about 3 more to argue back and forth and get them to cancel the other charges.

Please don't panic though, just because it says scratches etc doesn't mean you will get charged.

Which company was it out of curiosity?

The car was leased through ford.