Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

I missed a direct debit on my Hire Purchase for a car of £127, I have been charged a £20 missed payment fee, £12 letter fee and £12 telephone call fee and I'm late by two days.
I have read through the CCA 1974 and believe I may have found an error on their part. They list the number of instalments and number of payments but don't state a date of payment. It says "Instalments are payable at monthly intervals commencing 1 month after the date of the agreement"

I may be stating the obvious but have you checked that the agreement allows them to impose all those charges? There should be a term that states what you will be charged. Another obvious question, did you actually receive BOTH a letter and a phone call? It seems to me a bit OTT to do both for a mere two days. Usually they'd do one and if you don't pay then they'd try the other.

Ignoring the fact this may be an improperly executed agreement I last paid on the 1st September, (this month I changed the payment date to 21st), so technically if I pay by the end of this month then I am within the "monthly interval" and no charges should apply.

What makes you say that?

An improperly executed agreement could be unenforceable but that only matters if you default on it. As this is a HP agreement, you'd likely lose the car if you stopped paying so it wouldn't make much sense to look at this side of things.

[Sparkie1723]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Sorry jgw but I gree with previous posters comments.
If any agreement says payments are to be made monthy and your first payment is for example 1st of xyz month ...then the next payment is due 1 calendar month from the date of the first payment....if you do not pay on the date 1st of the month following xyz month then you have placed yourself in arrears. If you do not pay until later in that month as you say thats how you interpret it.......say two weeks into that month you are in arrears by 1 month & 2 weeks;.
Can you follow that??
Sparkie

[Sparkie1723]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

No dates just monthly intervals, don't even have a Direct Debit form. Even the agreement date is wrong by two days.
I signed it the dealer sent off, creditor signed it and sent me a copy. They are claiming the agreement started two days earlier.

Clearly they are incompetent.

The agreement becomes executed on the day the lender signed the agreement not when you signed it........and the first payment would be due 1 month after the date of execution by the lender .......all further payments due 1 month after the first payment as I have tried to explain on my previous post......some times the lender does sign an agreement before the borrower

Sparkie

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Received letter through door at 09:30 and phone call one hour later. The charges are on there but doesn't make them legal at that price.

i say that because the CCA states the terms must be laid out including repayment dates which they haven't.

(c)

the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor, and the various amounts comprised in that total sum, with the date, or mode of determining the date, when each becomes due.

Monthly isn't a date.

Date - the day of the month or year as specified by a number.

i know it's down to a court to decide so won't go there.

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

The agreement becomes executed on the day the lender signed the agreement not when you signed it.

Sparkie

Please read the post, how can they sign it two days BEFORE me? I signed it first on the day the agreement was drawn up! It didn't even exist two days before.

also how can they execute an agreement that I haven't signed? That would be illegal surely.

[Sparkie1723]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

"the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor, and the various amounts comprised in that total sum, with the date, or mode of determining the date, when each becomes due".

A Court would find the bit in heavy highlighting by me acceptable IMO and your potential argument would more likely than not fail.
Sparkie

I am not legal trained nor qualified and give my views based on myown experiences

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Sorry jgw but I gree with previous posters comments.
If any agreement says payments are to be made monthy and your first payment is for example 1st of xyz month ...then the next payment is due 1 calendar month from the date of the first payment....if you do not pay on the date 1st of the month following xyz month then you have placed yourself in arrears. If you do not pay until later in that month as you say thats how you interpret it.......say two weeks into that month you are in arrears by 1 month & 2 weeks;.
Can you follow that??
Sparkie

1 calender month from the 1st is next month not the 1st of next month.

Calender month - each of the twelve named periods into which a year is divided.

im not interpreting anything, just using a dictionary, 1 calender month from 1st sept is October. Dictionary says so.

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

"the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor, and the various amounts comprised in that total sum, with the date, or mode of determining the date, when each becomes due".

A Court would find the bit in heavy highlighting by me acceptable IMO and your potential argument would more likely than not fail.
Sparkie

I am not legal trained nor qualified and give my views based on myown experiences

What mode? Oh yes MONTHLY, look the word up, monthly is not a date so can't determine one.

[Sparkie1723]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Please read the post, how can they sign it two days BEFORE me? I signed it first on the day the agreement was drawn up! It didn't even exist two days before.

also how can they execute an agreement that I haven't signed? That would be illegal surely.

It would not make it illegal..all it means is that the lender has agreed to lending you the money under the agreement and its terms .......when you sign it you also accept the terms and conditions.

You would have a case if you had not signed it ....however you did.......sorry to be so blunt...but that happened to me once.
Judge said it was" unusua" for a creditor to sign firstl......... but nothing untoward had been done.
Sparkie

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

I was only pointing out their incompetence with the date. Signing something before it existed is not possible! They didn't sign first so how could I not sign in the basis that in the future they would put a false date down?

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Anyway back to the point, no date has been determined.

date - the day of the month or year as specified by a number.

no date specified or implied or determined. Therefore my only argument is that no fees should apply as the payment is not late as per their agreement.

If I signed a work contract to work once a month and started on the 1st, is there anything to suggest I will always work on the 1st?

i have a contract with British Gas in which they service my boiler at "annual intervals", do they come the same date every year? No. Are they required to? No. Same month every year? Yes.

so what's the difference between monthly intervals and annual intervals?

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Seems I didn't need to worry, called them back just now to pay and they said as its the 1st time I have missed a payment they will drop all fees and charges as they said in their experience the extra charges put customers in a difficult financial position and they are likely to affect to future payments.
Didn't even have to ask, maybe there are responsible lenders.

[Kati]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Seems I didn't need to worry, called them back just now to pay and they said as its the 1st time I have missed a payment they will drop all fees and charges as they said in their experience the extra charges put customers in a difficult financial position and they are likely to affect to future payments.
Didn't even have to ask, maybe there are responsible lenders.

But have they told you a date by which you have to pay every month (ie: 1st, 14th etc...) ???

[jgw]

Re: Hire purchase agreement not clear and missed payments

Direct debit is setup for 21st.