End of lease 'Balloon Patments'

[Johnjoseph]

Hello and thank you for reading my issue which is about mis-selling / misrepresentation of hire leases (10 of them) and
end of lease 'Balloon' payments to the broker Henry Howard Finance for getting titles for the of the goods.

I have referred the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service and attach the covering letter to them. Have not ruled
out litigation.

Any advise would really be welcome.

Thanks.

[Johnjoseph]

Re: End of lease 'Balloon Patments' - Further Developments

Had an incredible incident when PCF Equipment Finance Ltd. sent 2 thugs to remove the leased equipment - had paid 59 out of 60 installments - dispute was they wanted more payments for the title deed - have taped it and can be viewed on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNCXR...ature=youtu.be . Did call the police who refused to attend this matter.

Financial Ombudsman Service would not entertain the complaint as the lease is in my business name.

Litigation seems the only way forward.

Any advice is welcome. Thanks. JJ

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: End of lease 'Balloon Patments'

Hello and welcome to Legal Beagles JJ if you haven't already been welcomed.

I DO apologise in the highest terms for you not having an answer as yet, and please rest assured this is highly unusual for Legal Beagles, so huge huge apologies again.

I am now highlighting this thread via VIP chatbox and a report to admin to get you a quick definative answer..

again please accept my sincerest apologies for how long you have been waiting

Puff.

[teaboy2]

Re: End of lease 'Balloon Patments'

Hi

Was this fridge on a lease to buy agreement, where after the lease had run its course property of the fridge transferred to your company? Or was it on a fixed term lease agreement where the lease ended after sixty lease payments? As if they were wanting more installments for you to keep the fridge, it sounds like what they ment was that once the original agreement ended they wanted to renew it but at an increased amount of money per installment.

Can you post up the lease agreement for this fridge so we can go over the terms and conditions? That way we will beable to see where you stand legally and give you the correct advise. As at this time without knowing what the terms of the agreement actually are it would be very foolish for anyone to advise you to seek legal remedy at court, as if it was only a fixed term lease agreement, where the property of goods did not transfer to you, then your claim would be stuck out and costs awarded to the other side.

Though either way, if they did not honour the agreement by for the full sixty installment periods and were 1 period short before removing the goods, then you have a claim for breach of contract as they should not have removed the goods till after the last installment was paid. You would also have a claim to damages as a result of them putting your freash vegatable stock on the floow, therefore making them unsellable due to food hygenie regulations, as a result of the bacteria they would have come into contact with whilst on the floor. So compensation for damage of stock too.

[Johnjoseph]

Re: End of lease 'Balloon Patments'

Oh thank you ever so much for your replies. This has been a rather difficult period going on since March of this year. I haven't got a scanner so I have taken a picture and posted it. Please bear with me as the issues are many and complicated to revel through. I will try and make sense out of it.

In 2007 we did a shop refit and my wife and I, we had signed 11 lease agreements through finance brokers Henry Howard Finance Plc on recommendation of Booker Cash & Carry under the impression that these were Asset purchases and they were regulated Asset Hire Purchase agreements. Actually 7 of them are regulated but hire leases and they sneaked in 4 agreements as un-regulated hire leases (2 with PCF Group Plc and 2 with Heritable Bank). There is an issue of mis-selling too. In Dec 2010 we paid off 1 lease early, got no rebate and on top had to pay extra to get the titles for the asset. So we decided not to pay any other leases off early.

Earlier this year, except for 2, all the other leases were coming to an end but 3 were in March / April. I wrote to all giving notice to end at the 60 months period. On completion of these 3 leases the financiers sent the title deeds to the broker Henry Howard Finance Plc who then asked for further end of lease payment, between 1 to 6 months additional payments to get the title deeds or else return all the assets which included flooring, electricals/lighting, air-conditioning, refrigeration, shop fittings. Dismantling the shop was not an optoin. This was never told to us nor was it in the agreement. Phone call and letters followed but Henry Howard remained resolute in their demand. So in May I wrote to all financiers of the remaining leases that were still pending that I was temporarily suspending payments whilst there were unresolved issues and referred this to the Financial Ombudsman Service and also to Booker Cash & Carry. As a result of stopping payments they all sent me DNs and Termination Notices. The FOA refused to look at my complaint as the lease were in my business name. Booker Cash and Carry did intervene and as a result there was a satisfactory resolution of end of lease title issue. In the meantime PCF and the other Creditors were aggressively pursuing outstanding payments. I was seeking clarity of what, how much and to whom we would need to make payments after completion before I re-started the outstanding payments. PCF activated the Secondary rental period in increase our debt. I had raised a formal complaint with them and after that placed the agreements in dispute. We were at this point when PCF sent the 2 thugs to remove the fridge.

Over the period we have paid over £10,000 just for this one lease for refrigeration which as per description in the agreement costs less than £2,000.

My fear now is for the remaining 2 unregulated agreements which could suffer a similar consequence. 1 was with PCF who have now sold it to Aldermore Bank the other one is with Investec Asset.

Sorry can't manage any more my mind's now simply going round in circles. But I am very thankful for all your help.

[Johnjoseph]

Re: End of lease 'Balloon Patments'

The fridge was removed after the full term. I had 1 repayment left to make. Since then they have commenced the secondary rental period which now adds to 3 months.