Unregulated agreements

[biffothebear]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and only came upon the forum in the past couple of days whilst doing some research following a bit of a revelation regarding my current car finance.
I've recently been looking to change my car and have done the rounds of a few dealers looking for something I wanted and the best deal I could get. To cut a long story short I've discovered that my agreement is more than likely unregulated which came as a bit of a shock as I didn't realise such a thing existed until yesterday! I was introduced to the finance company - Clydesdale Bank Asset Finance - by a broker. At no point during the setting up of the agreement did anybody mention that it would be unregulated (I don't have sight of the documents at the moment as I'm away from home, but based upon the fact that the total amount payable was around £50k, and the agreement was set up in March 2008, I'm assuming that it's unregulated). Now you may say that I should have noticed when reading the documentation that it said unregulated somewhere, but assuming it is unregulated, I'm afraid this wouldn't have been something I was necessarily looking for as I've had many agreements in the past when purchasing cars and I can't say I've ever noticed if the agreement has been regulated or unregulated, and if I had I wouldn't have known that it referred to the CCA anyway. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as the saying goes. Anyway as I am now aware of this I can ensure that any future agreement is a regulated agreement.
Now to the main point of this thread - bearing in mind that I haven't looked at the documents for probably 18 months and could be incorrect - assuming that I was never informed that this was an unregulated agreement, and was ignorant to the fact that such a thing exists, do I have any recourse against the finance company and/or the broker for not being transparent when arranging the agreement?
I should emphasise that I am not in any financial difficulty, I am just annoyed to have got myself into such an agreement out of ignorance, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who has done this, certainly judging by the number of posts I have read over the past couple of days from people in a very similar position.

Thanks.

Biffothebear.

[Caspar]

Re: Unregulated agreements

Sadly I think it was up to you to notice it. However:

An unregulated agreement can become regulated because of a
variation made to it. This can happen when the parties make a further
agreement which varies or supplements the earlier one. In such a
case, the Act regards the earlier agreement as having been revoked
and replaced by a new agreement which incorporates the terms of the
earlier agreement. This new agreement may be regulated under the
Act even if the previous agreement was unregulated.

Have a read here:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/bus...dit/oft140.pdf

[biffothebear]

Re: Unregulated agreements

Caspar,

thanks for the reply. It's a bit disappointing, I know I should have noticed this, but as a layperson it is difficult to understand the legal implications of every transaction you enter into, and it is this that gives these large companies a major advantage, which I think is one of the reasons the CCA is there, but unfortunately I entered into the agreement 1 month before it would have become a regulated agreement. Of course I had no idea at the time that this was the case as I'd never previously had to make use of the CCA, didn't know it existed really, and therefore had no idea it was about to change in my favour.

I'm interested in your last point however. If I understand this correctly, if there was any variation to the agreement, it would then become regulated? I have 1 year left on my agreement, so does this mean that if there was a variation between now and then that the remainder of the agreement would be regulated, or does it mean that the original agreement no longer applies and a new agreement would apply for the remainder of the current term i.e. 1 year? Also, what constitutes a variation?

Thanks.

Regards,

Biffo

[Caspar]

Re: Unregulated agreements

Have a read of the website link and then revert to Google and see what you can find out. There's a lot on there! If there's only one year left, why are you so keen to change it? I think the main benefit of a regulated agreement is that you can hand the item back and walk away once you have made half the payments, but you are clearly well beyond this stage.

[biffothebear]

Re: Unregulated agreements

Have a read of the website link and then revert to Google and see what you can find out. There's a lot on there! If there's only one year left, why are you so keen to change it? I think the main benefit of a regulated agreement is that you can hand the item back and walk away once you have made half the payments, but you are clearly well beyond this stage.

Actually I am only just beyond the 50% mark, how I ever agreed to this arrangement I don't know! I'd normally consider myself a very intelligent person, postgraduate qualified and run my own IT business. This is actually one of the reasons I am so interested in the agreement being regulated (or not), I feel like I've been taken for a ride financially (my own fault I know), so being able to hand the car back without any issues would suit me just fine, I'd also get a better deal on a new car to boot!

Regards,

Biffo

[Caspar]

Re: Unregulated agreements

I'm only half a step ahead of you with this, but the way I read it, if the sum was in excess of £25000 it ceased to be regulated by the CCA and became unregulated. This has now changed (from memory in 2008) so it may well be possible to go back and renegotiate to make it a regulated agreement.

If however you're wanting to hand the car back and walk away, I suspect, but don't know, that you'd be starting a new agreement so would have too work to half way through that before you could hand it back and walk away.

Short of someone arriving who really knows about this, I think you're best doing some research first before leaping into something you may later regret.

[biffothebear]

Re: Unregulated agreements

Caspar,

I don't intend to do anything rash, I'm not desperate, I only got to this point because I felt I'd been somewhat misled in entering into the agreement and was looking to see if I'd got any recourse when I dsicovered my agreement was unregulated due to when it was taken out and the amount. I really now need to know, as you say, what would happen in the event that I managed to vary the agreement. If anybody knows I would be grateful for the benefit of your knowledge.

Biffo

[stevokenevo]

Re: Unregulated agreements

If you are not in difficulty, i dont see what the problem is?


Maybe you are being sucked in by the increasing 'blame culture' in society.


Just out of curiousity, did you purchase the vehicle personally, or did your IT company buy it?

Stevo

[biffothebear]

Re: Unregulated agreements

If you are not in difficulty, i dont see what the problem is?


Maybe you are being sucked in by the increasing 'blame culture' in society.


Just out of curiousity, did you purchase the vehicle personally, or did your IT company buy it?

Stevo

Stevo,

thanks for replying.
I think my earlier posts should explain what the problem is. This is really not much different to being made to pay exorbitant bank charges when you go overdrawn without agreement, which judging by all the stuff at the bottom of your post, you have fallen foul of. We both ostensibly knew what we were getting ourselves into. Anyway, as I'm a new member I don't intend to get into philosophical debates about the rights and wrongs of taking advantage of the situation if possible - as your second sentence seems to suggest you take exception to this - finance companies do this on a regular basis without compunction.

By the way the car was bought by me personally.

Regards,

Biffo

[stevokenevo]

Re: Unregulated agreements

I still don't get it.

You took out a loan, for a sum outside the threshold for a regulated CCA agreement, have no problems paying it back, but feel hard done by.

Have i got it right so far?