Car finance compnay merged, my rights forgotten?

[Jonboyeno]

Hello

This is my plight.

Purely after some advice.

I have a car through freeway car leasing, financed through RBS. everything has been going fine, I have made all my payments to date and have not heard from them, so all parties are happy.

I have come into some personal financial difficulties, so wanted to speak to the compnay that owns my car finance agreement.

Upon going to the website (http://www.bankofscotlandfreeway.co.uk/) I signed up through I am greeted by the following: -

BANK OF SCOTLAND FREEWAY

 

It is with regret that we are announcing that from Thursday 19th February 2009, Bank of Scotland Freeway will no longer be able to accept enquiries or orders from new customers.

If you are an existing customer and have an enquiry about your vehicle, please call our Customer Service Team on 0800 419 930.

Lines are open from Monday to Friday between 09.00 and 17.00.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our Freeway and Freechoice customers for their support over the years.

Craig Hutton

Director - Freeway

Upon calling the number it goes through to a company called Lex autoleasing, who are financed through the Lloyds banking group.

Long story short, I wrote 2 lengthy e-mails and called several times to explain my situation and what options I might be able to discuss around restructuring the agreement, to make monthly payments less, spread out the finance, and come to some arrangement in regards to the £4k balloon payment due at the end if i wish to retain the car.

I've basically been told that due to the 'merge' when lloyds banking group bought of RBS, the only options i have are to carry on struggling, or to pay a settlement, which would be £7k+, and in my current financial situation either is far from a solution. They are basing this on due to the merge they can not deal with personal car finances and have "to stick to their financial guidelines".

1> I was not informed in any way that the company had merged and the company I originally dealt with no longer exists. Should I not be legally told? resign an agreement? etc?

2> in my original agreement I actually had the options to 1:pay all the payments and return the car and walk away. 2:pay all the payments and then a final balloon payment to retain the car 3:hand the car back and take out a new finance deal, so essentially carrying on with a new car. These options now seem to be limited, and due to the merge option 3 no longer exists, is this not a breach of my agreement?

I need to know if they have in any way breached the terms of their agreement, and what legal notifications i should have received.

At the moment they are sticking to their "we can not do anything due to the merge line"

Advice welcome

Thank you in advance

JonB

[postggj]

evening all

 

you are correct

 

the original company can be bought out as many times as they like but the new creditor

 

has to honour the t&c of the original agreement with all the rights and protections of the original agreement

 

in english

 

they can get stuffed