[Solved] Finance due on a car I don't have anymore!

Some friend! As you gave him the keys and v5 I doubt the police can do anything, but I would certainly talk to them about it. What an awful situation for you to be in.

Basically he couldn't get a car on finance so you got a car on your name and he paid you a bit extra, like you were a unofficial dealer sub financing very common practice.
Your screwed unless you have nothing or go bankrupt. You only do it if you've got back up and you know the people won't run off with the car and on the off chance they do u can trace them and get the money out of them and extras and a broken bone or two.
Cars in finance change hands for £3000-5000 cash on cars worth £30000-40000!if the dodgy buyer can evade being caught or pulled over by police after three years they apply for the v5 in their name and get it, and they have a car still worth £15000.very common in the motor trade.

You said you put him in contact with the dealer about buying the car, you would need to deal with the dealer everything was on your name. all he would have to really do is transfer the money to the dealer and you with the dealer tie it up and transfer ownership over to him.

Hi Blindsided,

I'm sorry to say, CRX is right. This was a secured loan (you borrowed the money, the car was the property used to secure it).

You still have a loan for £20,000 that you have to pay, regardless of whether you have the car or not. If you can't recover that from your friend then the finance company will seize cash and property you have. This is not a trivial matter Blindsided, speak with the finance company to see if it will accept an alternative payment such as converting the loan to an unsecured one and continuing to pay it off, but the interest rate will be higher and it will take you a long time to clear the £20,000 plus interest and charges. If you don't do that you will very soon have the bailiffs at your house - it may be better for you to sell some property to raise the £20,000 now than allow it to be seized and sold at auction as the recovery charges can be huge and whatever is sold at auction will raise very little.

I'm guessing you must have well paid employment in order to get an expensive car on finance in the first place, so the bankruptcy route CRX talks of may not be a good option. Bankruptcy may sound attractive, but it would be difficult for you to trade (if you run a business) or gain well paid employment with that against your name.

You have to act now to get this resolved with the finance company, otherwise life may become unpleasant.

Best wishes for 2019.

O

Thank you all for the replies,

I still don't believe (probably naive of me) that my friend is just not planning to pay, I think he just messed up massively with his finances and is now having to find a chunk of money. I will call the police next week and see what they say and also try citizens advise.

My friend sold the car knowing there was finance on it and I trusted him to use that money to pay it off, the debt collector who got involved said he'd already visited the new 'owner' but obviously, the DC can't do anything without a court order, so he was just barking a lot.

I was wondering if I could get the car recovered myself somehow (although I don't know where it is!) and then signing the voluntary surrender of the vehicle which was an option....or signing the voluntary surrender anyway and just co-operating as much as I can. Both the dealer, the solicitor and the debt collector all know the full story from me, I haven't hidden anything from them.

All this on top of the divorce that's waiting on FDR in February, great timing. The property that the car and loan were registered to is no longer my home and I'm rarely in the UK too, another (poor) excuse/reason for me just assuming my friend, who is in the UK all the time was handling things.

The car still belongs to the finance company so if they know were it is it will be recovered from the "new owner" unless the new owner comes to a deal pays the £20000 odd thousand to them.
Your friend on the other hand has made £20000 or whatever he sold it for. So the new owner has lost that money. The new owner due to his nievity has lost money so its up to him to get that money somehow off your friend.
This is why you should always check if a car has outstanding finance on it.
I don't know the legal side but if you contact the dvla and explain they will give you the registered keepers address and if you have a key and are up for doing risky things you could go and get the car. And hand it directly to the dealer. Or leave it to the dealer to recover. You might have to pay charges etc that way though

Thankyou CRX!

Today I called the local police in the UK, explained my dilemma to see if I could say the car was stolen, just any way of getting it back to give to the dealer.

They said it's not theft but it is fraud, so now I'm waiting for them to call me to progress it...I feel really bad for doing this though as I don't want the friend to get into a lot of trouble if he is trying to sort it out 🙁

You shouldn't feel bad cos the moment your friend sold the car he should have given you the money.

That's true, I'm just concerned about how severe things could become and any repercussions from dropping someone in the [censored] 🙁

He's dropped you in the [censored]. He's currently £20000 up.
If you're worried about repercussions he's clearly not a friend. Keep any texts from him any threats etc and phone the police if you are in fear.
And don't do anything similar in the future

What an interesting story Blindsided.

CXR is right in that the car still belongs to the finance company, if they know where it is they will soon recover it. If the current keeper gets wind of that he may well make sure it is worth a lot less than £20,000 when they recover it (like not handing over the key for instance). The finance company will assess the value of the recovered car and probably sell it as a public auction if it has not been looked after well or doesn't have both keys. The difference between what is recovered, minus the recovery costs and £20,000 is what you will still owe the finance company (the loan was to you).

This is your fault and you have a moral obligation to make this good. If you intend to live overseas forever then you might get away with not settling the outstanding finance, but you will have (at least) a CCJ against you, so I wonder whether it is worth never coming back to the UK (well, at least for another 7 years) rather than settling whatever you owe the finance company. That is your choice to make, but if you choose to do a runner I suspect you will regret it in the future.

Your friend (the one you gave the car to) will be in some considerable bother as this unfolds. He sold the car to a third party knowing it did not belong to him and either lied about there being no outstanding finance (which would be theft from the finance company) or he told the third party it still had finance owning (which would be fraud on both their parts). Either are criminal offences against the finance company. If the finance company finds that you are not willing to pay the money you still owe it I suspect it will insist on the police pressing charges against your friend, and possibly the third party that has the car now as well.

As CXR said, I would make sure you keep copies of any correspondence between you and your friend that shows the car was on loan to him from you and that it still belonged to the finance company. Once he starts being squeezed by the police he will very quickly become an adversary of yours in order to keep himself out of gaol!

Best wishes,

O