Toyota Finance - Car loan question. Very concerned!

[Surfer01]

In 2008 we purchased a used Toyota car from a Toyota dealer and used Toyota finance to finance the vehicle. The repayments are £193 per month. At the time I thought I was signing a HP agreement but it turns out it was a loan agreement.

In October last year I was made redundant and arranged a DMP through CAB and Toyota was being paid £135 per month. At no point did Toyota finance respond in writing accepting or rejecting the DMP. As a matter of fact they never responded to any letters.

At the end of June I managed to find temporary work and at the end of July started paying them in full again however in September I fell ill with flu and was off work for 7 working days and obviously do not get paid when I am off.

As a result I was unable to meet my commitment on the 30/09/09 however paid the instalment £193 in full today after a lot of aggro with them.

Basically they are saying that because I have arrears from when I was on the DMP I need to pay the arrears of £382 which is less than 2 month's payments off over the next three months or hand back the car. There is no ways I can afford to pay an additional £130 per month to catch up.

The person taking my payment was a real nasty piece of work and gave me a real hard time even though I stated that all I wanted to do was pay the outstanding monthly payment and that if they had issues they shoudl write to me.

As far as I am aware the the loan is not tied to the car but then I was never given a copy of the Terms & Conditions from day one even though I asked for it on several different occasions verbally and in writing. The agreement that I signed does not state this but it may be in the T & Cs that I do not have at present.

In the event that the loan is tied to the car what are my options? I am aware that they will need a court order to take back the car and I would like to avoid any court charges. However how would a judge look at it if I am making an attempt to pay the monthly instalment even though I have arrears?

If not, I assume that I can sell the car, pay a sum off the car and then pay reduced paymenst until it is all cleared.

Which ever way we go, after selling the car, there will still be a balance outstanding of £2000 which if spread over the remainder of the term will reduce the payment per month to about £70 which is affordable.

Some input would really be appreciated.

[raydetinu]

Well it really does depend on the agreement and what you isgned up to; get a copy fast. did you sign it at the dealers and if so why werent you given a copy? if it is a loan ( personal, then it is not tied to the car ). and I am sure you may have got abetter deal somewhere else. As they say they can take the car back then it does sound like HP. its not lease purchase is it. the type of loan/purcahse is really importatnt.

[sailor sam]

Hi there,

 

Something aint right here. Firstly the dealer should of provided you with a copy of the agreement you signed and should of made clear what type of finance you were getting. And Toyota Finance would'nt give you attitude over the phone especially over such a small amount of arrears and I could'nt see them offering a loan to finance a car, they would normally do it via an HP agreement. Are you 100% sure it IS Toyota Finance? You should of got a proper finance agreement from them within a short time after buying the car.

 

Now the good news; you say you have allready written to them requesting the agreement, when did you send the first letter? Was it over 2 weeks ago? If so, your account is now 'in dispute' and as such is un-inforceable. Also, if the car was bought with a loan rather than HP then they can't re-posses it any way.

 

Others will dive in hopefully and offer you more advice on this so you may wish to post the paperwork up for us to look at but please delete any personal details including account numbers ect before you do.

[postggj]

Well If Its A Fixed Sum Loan Agreement, The Car Is Your, You Can Sell It, Whatever

 

The Finance Co Has No Claim On It

 

Need To See How The Agreement Is Headed

 

Fixed Sum Loan Agreement

Hp Agreement

Conditional Sale

Get The Idea

[Surfer01]

Thanks for all the above. I have double checked and it is definitely a loan from Toyota finance otherwise I would have been able to hand the car back to them. There is nothing on the agreement about once you have paid "x" amount you can hand back the car however it does say that after 24 months settlement figure is "y", or after 36 months "X" etc.

When I signed the original agreement I assumed it was a HP agreement as I did not think that Toyota did loans. Obviously at the time I was not that familar with all the ins and outs of agreements.

The atttitude of their representative when I was trying to make the monthly payment which was less than 48 hours after the payment date just beggars belief as it was him threatening that they would take the car back. I had a run in with this same character just after I got made redundant and wrote a letter complaining about his attitude but they never responded to my letter or any other letters we sent them.

Although I was bit concerned I had the savvy to realise that a court order would be required to do this but even with a court order they may not be able to take back the car as the court order IMHO would be a demand to pay the outstanding balance and not handing back the car.

If I was trying to avoid paying the debt then maybe I could understand it. It is nice to come on here and get re-assurance.

[sailor sam]

We need to see the documents you have to advise you further.

[IdaInFife]

send them a cca request no1 in my sig

 

inlcude a po for £1 and send recorded

 

ida x

[AA99]

send them a cca request no1 in my sig

 

inlcude a po for £1 and send recorded

 

ida x

 

Don't sign the letter in your normal signature either! Initials or digi sign! They cannot repossess your car on this type of loan without a court order. It is not Hire Purchase! I have a very similar situation going too!

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-debt-issues/161277-aa99-ge-money-car.html

 

ps. as soon as your valid CCA has not been received, the account is officially in dispute and the buck stops there!

Edited October 4, 2009 by AA99
ps.

[Surfer01]

Trying to upload copies of agreement but I am failing to do so.

Edited October 6, 2009 by Surfer01

[Surfer01]

It worked!

 

[raydetinu]

Variation of a secured loan! the loan is secured on the car. so if you default they can apply to the court to take it back. not good, however I think if it came to court and you could prove hardship a judge wpuld enforce acceptance of a reduced payment per month on lender, especially if there is only a small amount outstanding. You would only get one shot at this, default again and they will get the order to take the car. the other option is to sell it and repay the loan, but any check will reveal that there is a charge against it that needs to be settled.

[Surfer01]

The arrears amount outstanding is only just less than 2 months payments and that was because I was in a DMP at the time however having said that at present I am off work due to my disability and only on SSP and I may not be able to return to work. I have also contacted CCCCs to help with our finances.

The amount outstanding on the loan is approximately £6600 and if we sell the car, we would be lucky to see £5000. The idea was to sell the car, pay in whatever we managed to sell it for and then pay reduced affordable payments. Although we bought the car over 2 years ago, we only received a copy of the T & Cs yesterday.

Perhaps we should draft a letter to Toyota Finance advising that we wish to sell the vehicle in order to pay off the bulk of the loan and then to pay reduced payments due to financial problems. Also adding in the letetr that if they fail to respond, we will assume that they agree to our proposal. At least that way it may generate a reposnse from them.

As I have already defaulted when I was on the DMP by paying a lower amount they may now take me to court, however I would like to have my say in court and make the proposal of selling the car to pay off the bulk of the loan. I am not sure if a judge would allow this or whether the judge would prefer reduced payments. We have never missed making a payment and when on the DMP we were paying about £60 less than our normal payment.

I am fairly certain that Toyota are going to pursue this as I lost my rag with the obnoxious character on the other end of the phone.

[raydetinu]

Certailnly write to them and outline a reduced payment and sale plan. This always looks good in court as you are trying to address the problem and if toyota play hard ball it will go aganst them, if your offer is reasonable. Also enclose a breakdown of income and expendityre so you can demonatrate what little if any disposable income you have. good luck and dont worry it will be a fairly long drawn out process. And point out that any additional caherges should not added to the account, as I undersatnd they will be excluded when it comes to court.

[Surfer01]

Thanks. Good advice. I will follow this course of action once I have spoken with CCCCs as they will come up with a more comprehensive income and expenditure list than I will ever think of.

[IdaInFife]

a couple of things,

 

the t and c's are not drectly linked? it says page 2 of 3 customers copy but on the agreement it says page 1 of 2????

 

i can't see where it says what type of agreement it is?

 

ida x

[Surfer01]

It does not say what type of agrement it is which is why when signing I thought I was signing a HP agreement. I did not realised that it was a secured loan as nowhere on the front copy that you sign is this stated. A bit misleading I guess. I am not 100% convinced that those T & Cs were in place when I signed or whether they were introduced at a later date.

I wonder if it is possible to view the original documents on a personal visit if you requested it as the T & Cs should be on the rear of the document. Perhaps this is why it has taken me 2 years to get the T & Cs out of them as they were never there in the first place. I wonder if the dealer would have the original copy as they were a main Toyota dealer? I suppose if it ever went to court, I could ask them to produce the original signed document for me to view.

[heliosfa]

Variation of a secured loan! the loan is secured on the car.

 

I'm not so sure. At no point does it say the agreement is secured.

 

It looks ALOT like my OH's BH agreement, it seems to be an unsecured Personal Loan, restricted use (the car) Debtor-Creditor-Supplier.

 

 

@OP - If you do a HPI check, what does it say about your car?

 

H

[AA99]

I'm not so sure. At no point does it say the agreement is secured.

 

It looks ALOT like my OH's BH agreement, it seems to be an unsecured Personal Loan, restricted use (the car) Debtor-Creditor-Supplier.

 

 

@OP - If you do a HPI check, what does it say about your car?

 

H

 

Agree;) I couldn't see anywhere it stated what sort of a loan it was and can we see the missing pages too!

[raydetinu]

It does say in the T & C no.5 about selling the car with the cash loan!? but nothing about taking it back if you default, so maybe just a personal loan then;odd!

[raydetinu]

By the way who are CCCC? if you have to pay them anything then dont! think carefully about any AVI'S?

[heliosfa]

It does say in the T & C no.5 about selling the car with the cash loan!? but nothing about taking it back if you default, so maybe just a personal loan then;odd!

 

My OH's Suzuki/Blackhorse loan has the same term.

 

There has been some muttering on one of my threads that it **Might**/**Could** be classed as an Unfair term.

 

 

In my own opinion, these types of agreements (The personal loan type) are the Finance Co's attempt to get out of the obligations they have for a HP agreement (Voluntary Termination, etc.) but still try to keep all of the good bits (such as recording they have an interest in the car, retrieving the vehicle in Default, etc.),possibly by miss-information.

 

From what the OP has said, they have told him that they can get the car back (one of the Benefits a Creditor gets in a HP, but not in an unsecured Loan) and they did a similar thing to my OH. Infact, in my OH's case, they made an entry on the account's log that as the car had been retrieved and sold by them, they had no further Legal Recourse!

 

H

[raydetinu]

It does all sound a bit devious this loan. It says Cash Loan so presumably it was for cash from which a car was purcahesd. I wonder what the court would think if they applied for repossession? I would do an HPI check to see if any interest has been logged.

[Surfer01]

CCCs are a charity. Seems I put in too may Cs. See CCCS - Free Debt Advice from the UK's Leading Debt Charity I agree that it seems suspect that secured loan is not mentioned on the agreement itself but is hidden in the small print. The missimg pages have never been supplied. Top copy to dealer / finance company, 2 page customer copy, 3rd page T & cs but the way it si done does not tally!

[heliosfa]

CCCs are a charity. Seems I put in too may Cs. See CCCS - Free Debt Advice from the UK's Leading Debt Charity I agree that it seems suspect that secured loan is not mentioned on the agreement itself but is hidden in the small print. The missimg pages have never been supplied. Top copy to dealer / finance company, 2 page customer copy, 3rd page T & cs but the way it si done does not tally!

 

It's not though - it is an unsecured loan. They are just trying to put (potentialluy unfair) conditions on what you can do with YOUR goods.

 

H

[Surfer01]

To the un-initiated it does appear to be a secure loan. Devious scoundrels!