Wow, just wow. I don't think that I have ever seen a more un-compliant credit agreement. The Termination:Your Rights section alone appears to have taken what should be statutory wording and terms and twisted them into something else completely.

Please check the type of agreement you have. Motor finance is usually provided in the form of Hire Purchase or Conditional Sale agreements (PCP is also a type of HP agreement). These are NOT covered under Section 75 of the CCA which would make the above advice incorrect. You are protected by the Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973. This link may help to explain the differences.

Agreed, the advice is somewhat rose tinted in terms of the OP's rights. The fact is that after 6 months the burden of proof rests on the buyer to prove that the vehicle was sold in a condition that made it unfit for its purpose at the time. The subsequent mileage and the very statement in post #1 that 'all running good until a week ago' strongly suggests that the fault was not present when sold and would be easy for the seller/finance co to defend. There is no statutory 12 month guarantee with used goods.

You have given enough information in your post to work out the repayment manually. 21% fixed interest per annum over 4 years equals 84% interest altogether. 7000 X 84% = £5880. So, the total amount payable is 7000 + 5880 + 325(fee) = £13205 / 48 = 275.10416 I assume the £175 fee is payable at the end and not part of the normal monthly payment. Seems correct to me.

Can you highlight exactly which section this is as I cannot find it? Genuinely interested. Ta.

The Consumer Credit Act deals with the withdrawal from the loan (under s66A), but this has nothing to do with any contract or agreement to purchase the goods. It simply means that an alternative payment method needs to be found. If the OP withdraws from the loan under the 14 day cancellation afforded under the CCA it simply means that he/she has a further 30 days to repay the amount borrowed in full, plus a nominal daily interest.

Doing it that way would still leave the door open for a rogue customer to do a charge back as well.

What I meant was that the wrong signature on the agreement is what could have lead to the conclusion that the vehicle had been stolen........

If the police are involved then the only way this can be is if the lender has involved NaVCIS due to them suspecting fraud, because otherwise they wouldn't be interested. This could be because you are stating that the signature on the agreement is not your sons. Regardless of this, there is not much point in chasing for copies of default notices etc because normal CCA rules do not apply........the police will be acting on the basis that a crime is alleged to have been committed.

This is dangerous advice in some circumstances: EG: I've just taken out HP for £10,000 - total amount payable over 5 years £16,000. No Deposit. After a couple of months I decide I can't afford it and want to hand it back. The car is realistically worth £8,000 (trade) and my settlement figure is £11,000. If I VS, and the car is sold for its trade valuation, I need to find £3,000 to settle it off and it's all finished. If, however, I take the above advice and VT, my liability is for 50% of the total amount payable, which is £8,000. In summary, I know that VT is preferable in many cases, but other factors including how long the agreement has been running, the current level of arrears (which remain payable regardless of the term run) and the condition of the vehicle also come into play.

You keep mentioning a third, when the amount you need to have paid to VT with no further liability is a half.

FOS wont be any help. They won't get involved in a matter that's already been to court as it falls outside of their jurisdiction.

You can escalate this to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and from what you have described I would pretty much expect them to find in your favour 100% and they would require TFC to allow the rejection of the vehicle, cancellation of the finance agreement and also probably some sort of compensation for the hassle you have had.

Have they given their reason for not accepting credit card payments, bearing in mind their website clearly displays the Visa & Mastercard logos? http://www.1stchoiceengineering.co.uk/service/engine-repairs/

If you are referring to the old £25k limit then this was indeed removed in 2011 as part of the Consumer Credit Directive, and replaced with a limit of £60,260 (which was at the time the sterling equivalent of the standardised European limit of 75,000 Euros.

At £63k borrowed, it won't be regulated by the CCA.

OP, if you add up the payments you have made on the statement (excluding those that bounced) it comes to £4456.07. Add in your deposit of £1900 and this is still less than a third of the total amount payable, which is the £7702.80. Also, when was the car repossessed? According to the statement you haven't made a payment in over 2 years. In the absence of your own payments towards the agreement what would be your preferred alternative to losing the car? DX - it's all very well assuming that all those fees are recoverable, but I think that they are likely to be fees that relate specifically to invoices that they have paid for work performed by outside companies/agencies as part of the recovery process, and there is likely to be a contractual right to add such charges to the agreement. In these cases there is unlikely to be a valid argument that the costs are unfair or indeed a 'penalty'.

Be very careful about pursuing this argument. If this is concerning a loan arranged through a car dealership then the advice you have been given so far is flawed, unless you paid them a fee for arranging the loan, which is very unusual in such circumstances. You could end up making a very expensive mistake if you start proceedings based on this argument. See pt2537's comments from this post downwards and you should be able to see why. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?109794-Welcome-Finance&p=3097700&viewfull=1#post3097700

I used www.aprcalc.co.uk to check the APR calculation. It's the most accurate checker i have yet found. Although that site is no longer accepting new subscribers the same calculation is now available at www.legaltools.co.uk The calculation is based on the amount of the cash loan, the term and the monthly repayment. Nothing else is needed. APR's do not distinguish between interest and fees - they are all costs of credit.

The regulations you mention are part of a suite of new regulations being introduced as part fo the European Consuemr Credit Directive. They will apply to unsecured loans that will be taken out from 1 February 2011. It will not apply to loans secured on land.

The case I was thinking of yesterday was Brooks v Northen Rock, which raised quite a few issues concerning a loan agreement - some of which surround the accuracy of the, and the type of, interest rate that can be quoted aside form the APR. Click here for a commentry - it helps to give an idea of how difficult it could be to successfully challenge in court.

Not exactly true - I was able to verify the APR just by knowing the amount of the cash loan, the term and the monthly payment. Any difference between the total repayable and the actual cash loan is a cost of credit. It doesnt matter if the cost of credit is made up of interest, fee, interest on fee, MIF, interest on MIF or anything else they can think of - its all part of the overall cost. I personally think that it would be very dangerous to start a legal challenge over this matter - the sums involved would send this straight to fast track and the cost consequences of losing would be unthinkable.

I will try and come back tomorrow with the court case details, but in answer to your question above about the APR - yes, the APR must take into account the TOTAL cost of borrowing and does not concern itself with whether this cost is made up of interest or fees (or both) - it is just a total cost. The total cost is pretty clear on your agreement and the APR is within allowed tolerances.

I see where you are coming from on this, and have checked the figures out as best as I can. The correct APR is 17.36924, so the rate they have quoted is within the 0.1% tolerance allowed. The total cost of credit is correct and quoted on the agreement, so it cannot really be said that there is a hidden charge because it all adds up. Whether they have calculated the amount of interest correctly from the 14% rate they have quoted, and whether this includes interest on the fee or not is still unclear, however as far as I am aware the prescribed term is the APR, which is definitely correct. There was a recent case involving Northern Rock in which the judge seemed to dismiss an argument that the borrowing rate was entered incorrectly - I will try and find it for you. As for the rest of the issues you raise - where you not given a cooling off period when you took it out? With it being a secured loan you should have been sent advance copies and given (I think) seven days before being asked to sing the original copy. Have you challenged any of this already?

OK - much clearer now having seen the agreement. The acceptance fee and the other fee are correctly shown as part of the overall charge for credit. I have not checked the calculations, but providing the APR is correct taking the TOTAL cost into account then this would be acceptable in the eyes of the CCA. The stated total cost of the loan is consistent with 121 payments of £419.47. As it is a variable rate agreement, the interest will be calculated daily and added monthly. As you balance comes down so does the monthly interest charge, however they calculate that it will be £22770.87 over the lifetime of the agreement assuming no change in the rate. The opening balance on day one will be £27985 (£25000 + £235 + £2750), and it will be on this balance that interest is calculated and charged, so in answer to your question, yes they can do this, but the interest on the fee is included in the total amount of interest shown - the agreement in the Walker case is almost identical to this one in its make-up. Please read this judgement carefully and you should be able to see the similarities. I'm afraid your Hurstanger theory does not work - this case was in related to agency law and the duty owed by a broker to his principal after the payment of a fee to secure his services. You could only have a potential case under this ruling if a broker had obtained the loan for you after you had paid them for their services, and they had also received a commission from the lender without telling you. Also, although interest is being charged on the fee, it is included in the total interest charge quoted on the agreement - which was ruled by the Supreme court to be acceptable - and therefore cannot be classed as secret.