New Member - VT & Paragon

[Tommo10]

Morning All, I'm new to the site, this is my 1st post, found the site very useful with a lot of information available, I have decided to terminate my finance agreement with the relevant party, I have used the template letters to, hopefully, resolve the issue, although it took a second letter(the one for abandonment of the car) this prompted a response, received a reply yesterday, although I have paid more than the 50% required, the letter I received back is saying that " Balance Required to Terminate" £1212.80, what this is for I have no idea, I will phone them tomorrow & see what is for. I will attach the letter received from them to this post, if I can, your thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[Amethyst]

Have you the credit agreement ?
And how much have you paid ( inc deposit )?

[Tommo10]

£9051.00 I have paid, the finance document states that I would have to pay £8933.50 to terminate the agreement, & "you will not have to pay anymore" The whole section is as follows: TERMINATION YOUR RIGHTS: You have the right to end this agreement, To do so you should write to the person you make your payments to. They will then be entitled to the return of the goods and to half the total amount payable under this agreement, that is £8933.50. If you have already paid at least this amount plus any overdue instalments and have taken reasonable care of the goods, you will not have to pay any more.

[Amethyst]

See what they say on Monday when you call them about that letter, if it is damage they will need to give a full breakdown, although not sure if they have picked up the car as yet and if not , how would they assess damage.... so I wonder if thats for a settlement figure rather than VT - but if you used the VT letter from here you should be fine. Let us know what they say about it tmw and I'll move your thread over to the car finance forum.

[Tommo10]

Hello, They haven't seen the car as yet, waiting for the inspection company to ring me & make an appointment, there is no damage to the car, it's only done 59k, but it is 12 years old, it's virtually immaculate, I was thinking of ringing the company & try to get them to inspect the car this coming Friday to get things moving, I'm wondering if the £1212.30 is for the inspection company's expense's for picking the car up?

[2222]

See what they say on Monday when you call them about that letter, if it is damage they will need to give a full breakdown, although not sure if they have picked up the car as yet and if not , how would they assess damage.... so I wonder if thats for a settlement figure rather than VT - but if you used the VT letter from here you should be fine. Let us know what they say about it tmw and I'll move your thread over to the car finance forum.

Did you spot that the Paragon letter was dated November whereas the letter to Wright Recovery was dated September? So, they may have picked the car up and assessed damage already. But the paragon letter is not worded that way.



EDIT: HOW DO DELETE THIS?

[Tommo10]

I'll certainly post the out come of the phone conversation with them tomorrow. The settlement figure they quoted me over the phone before I sent the termination letter was for £8666, Thank you for your response, very much appreciated.

[Tommo10]

Yes I did spot the date, I only sent the termination letter to them on the 22nd of October, could just be a generic letter & they only enter the details if & when needed or a mistake ?

[Amethyst]

Collection charge would only be £100 really, plus it shouldn't be charged under a VT. could just be the same lack of attention to detail exhibited with the letter dates.... speak to them and find out - just don't agree to anything xxx

[R0b]

If possible, I would suggest you try and record the call either using a call recording app or perhaps put your phone on loudspeaker and use another phone or recording device to record the conversation. Anything can be said over the phone and although you have a right for those calls to be sent to you under a subject access request, that can prove difficult and quite often they tell you (rightly or wrongly) that the call has been deleted.

always best to keep a paper trail and stay off the phone but if you need to, then always worth having evidence to show what has been discussed.

[Tommo10]

Afternoon All, having spoken to Paragon this morning, it appears that I haven't paid the 50% required, the statement they sent through lists all the payment to date, then at the bottom of the list is a total figure, this figure is what I thought the payments paid to date were, not so, it is the outstanding balance ! So I added up the column & to be fair to them, they are correct, my own fault, but I am still better off paying the £1212 rather than continuing with the agreement, I will now telephone Wrights & see if I can get them here Friday, thanks for all your advice/comments, I will let you know if everything works out ok, I did find the template letters very useful, so thank you to the author.

[Amethyst]

Ahhhh oops.

Have you checked their statement against your bank and what payments you actually made? ( just to confirm their list is correct )

Did you pay a deposit / advance payment when you bought the car at all that isn't listed in the installment payments made ? ( just on the off chance )

[R0b]

but I am still better off paying the £1212 rather than continuing with the agreement,

Once you have given notice to terminate the agreement, that notice cannot be revoked unless Paragon consent however, that is assuming the date given for termination has not passed. If it has passed, the agreement cannot be reinstated and you would have to enter into a fresh one with Paragon - there is no obligation for them to do that and obviously any use of the car ceases upon termination.

So you are liable to pay them for the outstanding balance of £1,212 but if you can't afford to pay that in one lump sum, you could ask to spread it over a number of months either in the same instalments you were paying prior to the termination or to you could try to repay over a slightly longer period with a reduced amount - assuming at this stage you haven't told Paragon why you were terminating the agreement. Nonetheless, they have a duty to treat you fairly and it is a breach of the FCA rules to demand a lump sum payment which could cause you some financial hardship.

[Tommo10]

Hello Rob, The termination letter was emailed to them on the 21st October & posted on the 22nd of October, giving them 14 days to retrieve the car, the 14 days came & went didn't hear from them, so then sent the second letter(abandonment),again giving them 14 days in which to retrieve the car or I would sell it at the auction & send them the proceeds, they responded on the 10th November(notice to run out on the 19th November) with the replies I have included at the top of this post. So, just to be clear, the first deadline ran out on the 5th November & the second deadline will run out on the 19th November, does that mean that my finance agreement with Paragon has been terminated ? until I ask them to reinstate it & take out another finance agreement with them for the outstanding finance(which I do not intend to do) ? thank you for the info above.

[R0b]

So if you gave them 14 days then the agreement would have terminated on 5 November and you would have been liable for any instalments due up that date. As you have not yet met the 50% mark, the outstanding amount becomes a debt owed to Paragon. I don't think it is something which you can enter into a fresh agreement for (other than a repayment plan) so there is no need to agree to a new finance contract and I would certainly imagine that Paragon would have no interest in doing so.

What you now need to do is make arrangements to repay the outstanding balance but if it is to be made by instalments, I would expect Paragon to send you out an Income/Expenditure form to complete. Personally, I think it is onerous and you shouldn't have to set out all income and expenses unless you are offering something significantly lower than the amount you were originally paying.

If they become difficult, then you might need to make a formal complaint which could prompt them to renegotiate, but in the first instance you should look to offer to repay within a reasonable time.