Leasing Industry Serious Warning!

Saturday, 24. October 2009

Fraud, miss-selling and malpractice cases have been on the increase during the recession causing a serious re-think about the regulation of the motor finance industry. In the meantime brokers are strongly advised to provide warnings to customers about the dangers of signing a legally binding contract without reading and understanding the terms and naively basing the decision to take finance on rate or APR alone. I am therefore attaching the following warning to all quotations that I provide in the future: Warning: When financing a car you will be entering into a legally binding contract for several thousands of pounds. As car finance is an unregulated area of finance, make sure that you read and understand your commitments, know your broker (the arranger of the finance) – he works for you not the lender, and know the lender. Do not rely on a well known lender’s name. Some of the most constraining and costly contractual terms have been included in contracts issued by bank backed lenders and ‘captives’ (car manufacturers own lending house). You should never make a decision about car finance based just on monthly rate or APR. By Graham Hill