Voluntary termination - Close Brothers

[R0b]

Whether you insure the car is entirely up to you and what you feel comfortable with. The way I see it, you have terminated the agreement and you no longer have the right to possession or use of the car and your obligations under the HP agreement to maintain continuous insurance falls away.

In law, you are what is known as an involuntary bailee as you are in possession of something you do not wish to keep. Your only obligation is to ensure you take reasonable care whilst it is in your possession i.e. don't cause or allow damage to be caused to the car. Does that extend to keeping a car that you no longer have any ownership or rights to insured? I would argue not and that's the lender's responsibility since they own the car, not you. If you do insure it, then you won't be able to recover that back unless Close Brothers agree to reimburse you.

Just make sure to keep any of this in writing especially if you object to what they are saying. If they say you need to insure it otherwise any damage you are liable for and are silent or non-responsive, if the matter went to court, a judge may find you liable since you said nothing and therefore a reasonable inference from that would be you accepted that responsibility, because any ordinary person who disagreed with that position would have piped up and said so.

[Joshy H]

thank you for the response R0b, on the phone i did say i wont be insuring it but I'm going to back that up with an email and my reasons why, i suspect i may get some cheek back from them i can feel it in my bones.

the below is what they emailed but didn't mention anything regarding what i said about the insurance or last payment.. so im going to reply!




Hello Joshua

Thank you for your recent email confirming that you wish to proceed with voluntary termination of your vehicle finance agreement 09-807XXX relating to LR13NWY.

Your vehicle finance agreement has been transferred to our Asset Recovery Team who will manage your request throughout the termination process.

We are entitled to the return of the goods and to half the total amount payable in relation to vehicle finance, which is £9011.40. You have not paid over 50% of the vehicle finance, therefore the amount you owe is £5106.46.

We have now shared your information with our vehicle collection agent Motor Auction Group who will be in contact within the next 5-10 working days to arrange collection.

You must maintain the Direct Debit and insurance throughout the process, once the vehicle has been collected, you can cancel them.

[Joshy H]

Update, they took the car 5th Feb, not heard anything back yet

ill keep the threat updated when i hear back from the asset team