My wife was recently awarded mobility allowance. She has a car and the garage advised that as the car was on HP with Black Horse, and it was unlikely we'd cover the settlement figure on the sale of the car, our best option may be to go for a voluntary termination. We have paid well over 50% of the HP agreement. I called Black Horse and they are saying that as we have an IVA we can't do a voluntary termination, it will have to be a voluntary surrender.
This all seems a bit odd. We did have an IVA and got our completion certificate nearly a year ago. The HP agreement with Black Horse was excluded from the IVA. Are Black Horse correct in stating that we can't have a voluntary termination?
The IVA was a breach of the agreement and you can lose your rights to voluntary termination as a result. This is usually not an issue as in an IVA the HP is either repaid in full or the vehicle returned.
I assume you did quite a short IVA if the HP was in place at the time of the IVA and if there is a shortfall it may well be captured by the IVA anyway.
Have a word with your previous IP who will know the facts of your case.
The HP agreement on the car was excluded from the IVA. We were able to keep the car and have never missed a payment on it.
We have a completion certificate for the IVA and yes, it was a short term IVA, in fact a one off full and final settlement payment - slightly unusual I know. It still took a year to get to completion!
The completion was about 1 year ago and as I said before we never missed a payment. I don't recall Black Horse ever writing to us to say we were in breach of conditions and they have never threatened to repossess the car and the HP agreement was not included in the IVA.
So even though we are a year out of the IVA are you saying the breach still stands and we can't do a voluntary termination?
The IVA was based on the payments continuing to be made so while it was a breach of the HP agreement Black Horse did not enforce as they were being paid. Some companies repossess as soon as you enter an IVA even if you are up to date but Black Horse are happy to continue to be paid.
As far as I am aware Black Horse are entirely within their rights to refuse the voluntary surrender and the question would be how any shortfall would be addressed should you opt for a voluntary surrender. Speak to your previous IP for advice and possibly the CAB if you need legal help.
Thanks for your advice Michael. The IVA does mean a breach so we can't do a voluntary termination but we could do a voluntary surrender. The surrender would mean we would have to pay any balance.
I think we are likely to get best price for the car with a private sale so we are going down that route.
