Firstly, you say you purchased the car on a hire agreement; do you mean hire purchase? If it is a hire agreement, you are not purchasing it, only hiring it for the duration of the agreement and it remains the property of the finance company. If it is hire purchase, it is the property of the finance company until you pay the option to purchase fee, when it becomes yours. A limited company is not a 'consumer', which is why the agreement is not regulated by the Consumer Credit Act, and the terms of the agreement will say what happens if you wish to settle the agreement early.

Try contacting them by e-mail or letter (keep a copy) http://www.sgeloans.com/ContactUs.aspx

It could have been regulated, but depends on the terms. Several court decisions considered this around 1999 - 2001.

Interesting question! I suppose it might depend how long the agreement ran before the matter came to light. Finance companies might have difficulty recovering their money and dealer could not just take the car back legally.

One consumer credit licence will cover all branches of a company, as it is the company which is a legal entity. However a group which trades as a separate limited company at each outlet will require a licence for each limited company. Consumer credit licences are issued by the OFT, not councils, and current licence details can be found on the Public Register Public Register A secondhand dealer's licence, issued by the local council, is required in most, but not all areas of Scotland. This is nothing to do with credit and is issued under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act. On the final point, the legal owner under HP is the finance company, but if arranged by an unlicensed dealer, the agreement is not enforceable unless the OFT issue a validation order, so repossession by the finance company would amount to unlawful enforcement.

Section 149 of the CCA 1974 provides that any regulated agreement, where the debtor or hirer was introduced to the creditor or owner by an unlicensed credit broker, is unenforceable without a validation order from the OFT. You said the OFT confirmed that the broker was unlicensed - they may also be able to confirm whether Black Horse applied to have the agreement validated. You could make a request to Black Horse under s77 for a copy of the agreement AND evidence that the agreement has been validated. If no validation exists, the agreement would appear to be legally unenforceable.

The CCA does not give protection to limited companies, but sole traders and partnerships of up to 3 partners are protected.

If the agreement was discussed face to face with the creditor or broker, and then signed away from trade premises, then it would be cancellable. The formalities for a cancellable agreement would have to be complied with, otherwise it would be improperly executed, and could only be enforced with a court order. If there were no face to face discussions, the agreement is not legally a cancellable one.

This only applies to a hire purchase or conditional sale agreement, where the vehicle is legally the property of the finance company. If arrears exist, these are also payable before the agreement terminates. Any PPI policy will not be terminated and payments made for that would not count towards the 50%. As voluntary termination is a legal entitlement, it should not have any detrimental effect on your credit rating.

Without complicating things too much, if your payments started a month after you obtained the loan the APR would be 25.1%; deferring repayments for 4 months (still repaying the same amount in total), the APR drops to 20.7%. The APR reflects the timing of the charges as well as the rates and amounts. By all means ask the bank to confirm their figures, but do not stop payments in the meantime.

Was the first repayment deferred?

The £100 and £30,000 limits for section 75 have NOT been changed by the 2006 Act.

If it is incorrect description, you may be able to establish breach of SOGA.

Your problem may be proving that it was already opened when it arrived. What do you mean "was not described as it should have been"? As Conniff said "The only exception to this is if the software does not work they will replace it with another disc."

The dealer is in breach of contract as the bike is not "as described" or of "satisfactory quality". He also appears to have applied a false trade description to the bike if he sold it as 2001 when it is 1999. I suggest you contact your Trading Standards on Monday.