Help please?

[Mrs Charlton]

Last february we got a Renault Scenic on hire purchase, it was much needed as our daughter was due to go into a spica cast and her new disabled car seat would not fit in our existing car (a tiny clio), or anything much smaller.
Back then both hubby and I were earning well, but when our daughter had her Op and went into the spica I left work to care for her full time, we struggled but managed to get by. We have never missed a payment on the finance arrangement (that is with Renault by the way).

We are reeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaally struggling now with the payments, and are worried about what to do. According to our contract, we have to have paid off £4991.10 before we can terminate the arrangement, as of this month we have just paid off £2710.26. It would be a further 15 months before the rest is paid off and we can terminate and buy something smaller.

We have already decided that all the money we get back from claiming our bank charges we will save and buy a car with outright so we don't have to deal with HP ever again (wish we'd never started but we needed it desperately at the time).

Is there ANYTHING we can do? A friend told us the other day as far as she knew it was just a case of paying 400 quid to breach the contract and give the car back and that would be it, should have known she was talking rubbish.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE does anyone have any advice about this? I don't know what to do, getting the car repossessed by not paying would get us nowhere as most certainly we would still have to make payments?
Surely there is a better way????? HELP!!!!!

[JonCris]

Before you do anything write to Renault Finance & explain your situation. After their response come back & ask advice.

Certainly don't follow your friends advice you could find your self owing thousands & have no car

[mollington]

I do some work with renault hp , and my advice would be is miss a payment than get on the phone and speak to there payment center . And they can somtimes make an arrangment with you.

write a letter if you like but in my experiance they tend to go missing

Obviously missing a payment followed by an arragment is very bad for your credit history,

Have you thought about paying the extra off with aloan or sticking it on a crdit card, that would ease things short term for you

[Mrs Charlton]

We are in the process of drafting a letter, its a bit complicated as Father-in-law had finance in his name for us so don't want to miss payments, however the car is registered to us and is ours in all documents and so on. Thanks for your help

[JonCris]

Was your Father in law the guarantor?

[jimfishybob]

Is this full HP or a PCP?
Have you had a settlement figure from RFS? If not get one.
What type of Scenic is it? Engine? Trim level? Standard Scenic or Grand?
Does your daughter qualify for the higher rate component of disability living allowance?

[loudog]

Hi thanks for replies, this is me (Mrs Charlton) I am just using a friends laptop and don't want to mess with her cookies and so on. LOL.

Car is Scenic Authentique, 1.4 engine totally bog standard. Higher Purchase is with RFS, hubby is ringing them literally in a minute, we sent a letter and as Holly suggested they claim to never have received it.

Will post back when we have more info. I am just hoping if they can't allow us to voluntary terminate for over a year they can make a new arrangement for payments or something. We are really struggling at the moment.

[ExBoSGal]

If Mrs Charlton hasn't paid enough to terminate the agreement, she hasn't paid enough to make a payment arrangement with RFS. They will only accept a payment arrangement once the customer has paid over a third of the account (the amount needed to terminate the agreement). Arrangement of a payment plan will also be subject to charges. They will demand a payment up front, and then charge for the arrangement being made. When I worked for RFS, we could only do 3 monthly arrangements (ie. split the arrears over three months) but this was charged at £60 and the customer had to maintain their normal monthly payments as well. I do believe this has now changed to six months, but as I no longer work for the b*****ds, I'm not entirely sure.

[ExBoSGal]

Ah, just re-read the post. If father-in-law has the finance in his name, he has full liability. The only person RFS will pursue is the person who signed the agreement.