Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Motorcar Finance May be Secured or Unsecured

By Shaun Mcfadden


Not many people purchase their motor vehicles for cash nowadays. Finance is usually a combination of dealing in the unwanted motor vehicle, cash payment and funding furnished by a third party lender. The car dealer will usually give a valuation of the car being traded in and the potential buyer has got to choose how the balance of the purchase price of the new or perhaps second hand car being acquired, is to be funded.

If funding by a third party is needed, the consumer should be aware that this kind of borrowing could be secured or unsecured. It is important also to be aware of the difference between funds made available by way of a HP agreement and an unsecured personal loan. A motor vehicle that is obtained and that is part funded or entirely financed by way of a HP agreement is not going to immediately become the property of the purchaser. The phrase 'Hire Purchase Agreement' deployed in relation to obtaining a vehicle essentially signifies that the customer is going into an agreement to hire the car with an option to buy. In the Hire Purchase Agreement the individual may have paid a deposit or traded in their own vehicle in part payment for the motor vehicle being procured but these measures on their own don't confer ownership of the car on the buyer nor do they bestow on the customer the legal right to sell on such a car. The documents that are typically furnished by the vendor when a vehicle is being acquired by means of HP will usually be titled 'Hire Purchase Agreement Regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974'. An alternative term that can be utilized with HP documents is 'Conditional Sale Agreement Regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974'. These are both appropriate titles and denote the binding legal character of the documents.

An automobile may needless to say be obtained with an unsecured personal loan supplying a part or indeed all of the funds. Such a motor vehicle immediately becomes the property of the customer who may dispose of it when and however they want. Such an unsecured loan may be referred to in the loan documents as 'Credit Agreement Regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974' or 'Fixed Sum Loan Regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974'. Such borrowing documents don't amount to a HP Agreement. Confusing, isn't it? Let's study some of the other clues in the documents the consumer may be given to sign.

The written text of a valid HP agreement must under the law include a section entitled TERMINATION: YOUR RIGHTS'. This section confirms that the purchaser has a right to terminate the agreement and describes how they should proceed with doing so, if that is what they want to do. What's more, the written text of a valid HP Agreement must also include a section entitled 'REPOSSESSION: YOUR RIGHTS'. This section describes the buyer's rights in the event that the HP company wishes to take the car. There are other conventional sections in a valid HP Agreement and if the document concerning the proposed agreement concerning the buying of the automobile ticks these boxes, then it is very probable that it is valid HP Agreement. The customer will not become the owner of a car procured under a Hire Purchase Agreement until she or he has settled all the repayments payable under the agreement and exercised their 'option to purchase' at the end of the term of the agreement.

In case the buyer of a automobile using a HP Agreement enters into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement with their creditors, they will ordinarily have to continue to pay the full amount of the monthly HP premium for the full time period of the HP Agreement. As a secured debt, the HP Agreement is just like a mortgage in that respect. The HP debt cannot be entered into the IVA unless the buyer defaults on their HP payments. In this type of scenario, the HP provider would repossess the car (according the buyer their due rights under the agreement) and any shortfall would be entered into the IVA as an unsecured debt. At that point it would rank for dividend equally with all the various other unsecured liabilities.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment