Excessive estimate for body work after voluntary termination of finance!

[bryanmccombe]

Just looking for a bit of guidance on this issue.

This month my partner has decided to terminate her finance agreement on a vehicle after reaching the 50% mark. The finance is with Close Brothers.

The finance company sent an independent inspection company out last week to assess the vehicle.To our absolute horror the inspection has resulted in a bill for £1300 of "repairs" to body work.

The vehicle is actually a 2008 model very small car. (similar size to fiat 500 etc) with over 5 previous owners. How they expect a car worth £700 to be worth £1300 in repairs is beyond me.

The scratches are superficial with all "damage" was already pre-existing on the car (which we have photographic evidence of some of this damage dating back to pre-purchase)

I'm wondering if we have a leg to stand on here, as the Close brothers have offered to take the vehicle back as well as graciously present us with this bill.

It seems unreasonable to me that a 12 year old car could be expected to be factory fresh all this time later.

The car has done little over 31k miles in total and has done a mighty 1850 miles since we acquired it...

Any advice here would be appreciated as i have a feeling that collecting this vehicle and sending it to auction would actually cost more than the vehicle is worth (hence this estimate to make it worthwhile for the close brothers)

Kind regards

[ostell]

So can Close brothers show the damage was NOT there when the agreement started? You can show it was

[bryanmccombe]

As far as I know it's just Thier word against ours. They have no evidence the damage wasn't there befor hand.

[R0b]

It's a 12 year old car for christ's sake and they are being unreasonable. You are right they cannot expect you to put the car in a better condition simply because they failed to do their job.

Up to you but this should be an easy dispute and suggest you start a formal complaint and then assuming they do not uphold it, take it to the Financial Ombudsman.

I've added an image below - the Court of Appeal case Brady v St Margarets Trust you might want to have a read of the section I've highlighted to support your complaint.

[ostell]

But you said you had pre purchase photos