Voluntary termination of Hire purchase - have you done it

[sonoonetoldyoulifewasgonnabethisway]

I am currently 33 months into a HP agreement which is 60 months - so over half way through. It has a high interest rate as I had poor credit when I took on the HP and I was desperate. I no longer want the car, can't really afford it but if I try and sell the car privately I can get nowhere near enough to pay the remaining finance off. I believe if you sell a car on the whole finance needs to be settled but I have no way of finding an additional £1000. Someone suggested contacting the HP finance company and asking to give them the car back.

Has anyone ever done this? Is it easy and do you incur any further costs? I can't find anything on the actual website for the finance company I used but a lot on google but conflicting advice.

I have done this in the past. You will need to check your finance agreement and I believe most state that you can hand the car back at a certain point in your finance agreement. Usually around half way.

I looked this up. You can hand the car back if approximately half the payments have already been made. And you should owe nothing. If you hand it back earlier payment is probably due. You have the right to end the agreement under the Consumer Credit Act so don't let the finance company say you can't. But they might come to an arrangement to extend the payments so reduce the monthly amount. Hope you work something out.

Just be wary that they will likely charge you for any scratches and dents which car dealers seem to have crazy prices for.

F

Thing is there is a scratch but it was there when I bought it, they were supposed to be fixing the rear parking sensors and air con and the garage never contacted me to say the parts had arrived and by the time i realised it was too late (I have ADHD and didn't realise how long i had the car before going back to the garage)

Would they have had to send pictures to the finance company when I bought it showing these?

TBH i was quite vulnerable when I went in, woman on her own without a clue, they sold me a donkey as it was all i could afford to get at the time and I had several issues with it when I first got it which they sorted out but i don't even think it was valeted

I did complain to the garage but they never came back to me and I just forgot about it (again ADHD)

I didn’t have any issues when I returned one with no extra fees etc. They sent the car to auction and as the car sold for more than was left on the finance I actually ended up having a bit of a refund from them. I think the best thing you could do is call the finance company and have them talk you through step by step what their process is for voluntary termination and what they look at/any fees involved etc.