Buying a car with finance outstanding.

[VXRuss]

After some advise if possible please.

I'm going to view a car Saturday and taking the money with me to purchase it on the day to save travelling to and fro the Midlands area from down south - the car is sub 4k to buy and have just run an HPI check and the car comes back as having finance on it.

I have spoken with the seller (a private sale), seems a very nice genuine guy who has had the car for quite a period of time and he has assured me that the outstanding finance amount was sent off some 8 days ago, although it's not showing as cleared into the finance companies account, the finance amount is circa 2.6k.

Although he sounds genuine I'm not one to trust someone wholeheartedly when it comes to things like this, he has offered to show me documentation when I arrive to show that the outstanding finance has indeed been sent off to be cleared and bank statements and has advised me the settlement date is the 25th January.

The finance is a personal loan, of which was applied to the car in 2007, so my questions are, if I were to buy this, would I owe the finance company money if the seller were to default on his loan? and what could I ask for, as in something to be written up between us to state the finance payment has been made to clear the debt?

Only ever bought from dealers before so a bit novice at this!

Thanks for any pointers.

[catman]

Hi, if it was simply a personal loan, surely it would not be attached to the car?

If he had purchased the car using finance through a dealer for example, then it would be attached to the car.

If it was a personal loan, then I don't believe that the finance company could ever chase you for it. They certainly couldn't take the car. (All IMHO, of course!)

Tim

[Petrolhead_Rich]

catman said:

Hi, if it was simply a personal loan, surely it would not be attached to the car?

If he had purchased the car using finance through a dealer for example, then it would be attached to the car.

If it was a personal loan, then I don't believe that the finance company could ever chase you for it. They certainly couldn't take the car. (All IMHO, of course!)

Tim

]

Unless the bank Loan was secured on his car.....

[catman]

Agreed, but usually personal loans are un-secured, which is why the interest rate is so high.

I often took out personal loans for car purchase when I was younger, but they were stand-alone and not secured against the car.

Tim

[Jonathan27]

When you arrive ask him to call the finance company with the phone on speaker. Get them to to confirm that there is no finance outstanding on the car.
You may also want to find this number independently just so that you can be sure that you are speaking to the right people.

[OperationAlfa]

Sounds a little odd to me.

[anonymous-user]

A friend of mine was in this situation with a motorbike. He couldn't sell it as he owed money on it. As soon as he had enough to pay it off, he did so and then (same day) advertised the bike. I believe he sold the bike the next day (or maybe 2 days later) and all was well.

[VXRuss]

Thanks all, I ran an HPI check and it came back saying finance outstanding against VRM, on the bottom of the HPI it says that it is a personal loan and that the finance company have no interest in the car?

I called the finance company and they said that they would remove it and that it shouldn't have been on there - takes 48 hours to remove it, just seems odd why it was on there in the first instance.