Outstanding finance is ‘deal breaker’

The majority of used car buyers (65%) claim that outstanding finance is ‘always a deal breaker’ according to a new survey by mycarcheck.com.

The results, claim mycarcheck.com, are a ‘problem when you consider that one in four cars on UK roads have debt secured against them’.

The vehicle history checker asked 100 callers to its Glasgow call centre in May 2018: ‘When buying a used vehicle, is outstanding finance always a deal breaker?’ with 65 answering ‘Yes’ and 35 ‘No’.

Mark Bailey, head of CDL Vehicle Information Systems, which owns mycarcheck.com, said, ‘Under popular types of finance agreement, notably Personal Contract Purchase (PCP), ownership of the vehicle is often retained by the finance company. The crux for buyers is that the finance provider can be within their rights to seize the vehicle back.

‘To complicate matters, the picture has changed a bit in recent years. As some of the respondents who said finance wasn’t necessarily a deal breaker pointed out: third party payments can sometimes be made to clear the outstanding debt. On the other hand, some of those who said finance was a deal breaker had been bitten before and would rather walk away.’

CDL performs over a million look-ups a day for companies including AutoExpress, CompareTheMarket, Go-Compare, Moneysupermarket, Swiftcover and Tesco.