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Fraud is on the increase as Internet and other car finance brokers find themselves up against it. Add this to the fact that people are now starting to realise that loans are not simply down to APR and leasing isn’t simply down to monthly rental. Take out finance and you have to sign a document locking you into many terms and conditions that you agree to by Read more »

The test of a finance arrangement isn’t so much the cost or the APR but in the current climate, what happens when things go wrong. Most of my readers know my views on the heavy promotion of personal loans rather than dealer HP but another issue was mentioned to me this week that again shows why HP is far more beneficial than a personal loan. When you take out dealer HP it is what is known as a Read more »

Which car holds its price best? I would have said Mini as it has held the title for some time but a few surprises have taken over, possibly as a result of high demand for smaller cars and fewer cars available in the used car market as a result of the scrappage scheme. The best performer, according to Glass’s Guide, over 3 years has been the Peugeot 107 which has retained 60.9% of its value. This has been followed by the Toyota Aygo (60.2%) and the Suzuki Swift (59.5%). My flabber has never been so gasted! By Graham Hill

Still no money for motor finance. Back in March of this year the Automotive Assistance Programme (AAP) approved £2.3 billion of support to help, as ministers predicted, up to 100 companies through the crisis. To date not a penny has been paid out whilst those responsible for the pathetic scrappage scheme pat each other on the back. The provision of cheap wholesale money to lenders would get people back into new cars. In America, where they have similar problems and have staff looking into chat rooms and tweeting each other, it has been found Read more »

Over the years I have put forward many reasons why you should opt for Dealer HP over a personal loan (contrary to all advice given in the media). Your legal rights are so much greater when you take HP. If you have read my book An Insider Guide To Car Finance, or been a regular reader of my newsletter, you would know the reasons that I put forward. However, I have just uncovered a new one that you may find useful if you, or a friend/relation ever find yourself in this situation. If you are a consumer (can also be a sole trader) and you purchase a vehicle outright you are deemed to have accepted the goods if you have had a reasonable time to inspect the goods and not rejected them. After this time your remedy for defects is restricted to Read more »

In the current climate there is lots of talk about guarantees and indemnities. Let’s be clear, before a lender considers a guarantor he must be fairly certain that the borrower can repay his debts. You may be someone who has never had credit before or you have had a credit card that has hardly been used, so you have very little credit history on which to form an opinion. But everything about you looks good, home, job, bank etc and you certainly have no adverse information stored on your credit file but for that extra bit of comfort the lender may be happy to Read more »

Last week I attended Motor Finance Europe 2009, one of the most important events of the year with regard to identifying how the European motor industry and the finance sector in particular is coping with the downturn. So I packed a couple of bottles of Paracetamol in the briefcase along with a couple of razor blades as I was totally convinced that by lunchtime I would be feeling more than a little suicidal and Read more »

It would seem that we are still waiting for some sort of bailout of the car finance sector in order to get people back into new cars but are the Government at risk of doing what they have done with banking and put the money in the hands of the wrong people. There are many lenders other than banks and they should have been helped before the banks who have simply bolstered up their balance sheets in preparation for Read more »

One of the side affects of the current recession and the drop in value of used cars are  the poor settlement figures being offered by insurance companies as a result of total write offs compared to the settlement figure required by the finance provider. Another involves the early settlement figures being asked for by lenders when drivers wish to early terminate a finance agreement, this could be as a result of Read more »

We are entering a very strange period at the moment in the motor industry. Many manufacturers have reduced production of new cars. Some have stopped altogether for up to 4 months. This drop in production is the result of a corresponding drop in demand (sales of new cars have dropped by 30 – 40% over the last few months). So  could it be that consumers and businesses are switching from new to used cars? If Read more »