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Sometimes asking for your CCA agreement upfront is a great idea, but that’s not always the case. If you’re having a hard time paying off the debt, it shouldn’t be your first go-to solution. It’s not very likely to work, as the debt will still sit with the original creditor even if it’s been passed to a debt collector. Asking for your CCA agreement usually only works if your debt has been sold on to a debt purchaser.
How To Request A Copy Of My CCA Agreement?
You have every right to ask for access to all of your personal information that creditors hold because of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and the Data Protection Act 2018. Under the CCA you can get a copy of your credit agreement plus all of the statements on the account. You can also file a SAR request to see what information your credit holds about you.
You can find a template online to ask for your CCA agreement. Within this template you should make sure that you’re asking the current creditor for a copy, and not the one who originally gave you a loan. If the copy doesn’t get to you within 12 working days, that creditor has no right to enforce any sort of court order until the copy is in your hands.
What information will I receive when I request a copy of my CCA agreement?
Depending on what letter you send to request a copy of your CCA agreement, you should receive a certain amount of information that is the same across the board for everyone. Mainly the copy should be able to tell you how much you’ve paid towards the car, how much you still owe the finance company and what there is left to pay and when on the car too.
What about if the creditor doesn’t honour my request?
If your finance company doesn’t send you a copy of the CCA agreement within a 12 day period, they cannot take any further action against you in regards to your car. They can’t repossess or submit a court order to take the car from you until you receive a copy of that agreement.
When you don’t receive your CCA agreement the finance company also can’t make you pay off all of the debt early. They can still ask you to pay off what you currently owe on the car, pass on information to the credit reference agency that can impact your credit record or sell your debt to somebody else.
Remember that getting the agreement doesn’t mean the debt goes away. As soon as you get that copy, any court actions can be taken against you to recover the car and any outstanding payments you still have.
I’ve got my CCA copy. Now what?
The first thing you need to check is that you have a true copy of the agreement. It has to be legible, and have all the right information on it. Your name and address, the date of the loan and also your creditor’s details should be visible on the copy. All the terms and conditions should be listed too. Please note that your signature doesn’t have to be present on this copy.
Asking for your CCA agreement is a very lengthy process, and you have to look at the circumstances you are in with your car finance to see if it is even worth it. If you have an older account that is still outstanding and you think the copy of a CCA agreement is the way to go, the account may have defaulted because of the age. In this case, there’s no point in asking for the agreement, as it’s unlikely they will even be able to find it.
If your creditor is threatening to take you to a court or with a CCJ, you should always ask for a copy of the CCA agreement. Once a CCJ has been issued it will be too late to ask, and the creditor has every right not to send it to you at all.
Some debts lay dormant for years, and then all of a sudden the creditor pops back up to hassle you. In this instance there has to be good reason to ask for a copy of your agreement. Where insolvency is on the table, asking for a copy of your agreement is a waste of time.
The benefits of having a car finance plan under a CCA agreement
Obtaining your CCA agreement can help you out from under a cloud of car finance debt. There are a multitude of ways that having a CCA agreement in place on your car finance is beneficial for you.
The most important thing you can do under a CCA agreement is to end your car finance early. If you find that you cannot afford the monthly payments of a PCP or HP anymore, asking for a copy of your CCA agreement might help you exit the finance early without falling further into debt. Under this agreement, you can terminate the finance contract early and receive a rebate of some of the interest charges. However, there is usually a penalty fee involved. You can only terminate a car finance agreement early if you have paid off more than half of the total amount owed on the contract. If you are under a PCP, you must also be under your mileage limit and the car has to be in good condition if you don’t want to incur any further fees.
The settlement figure for your car finance will also be calculated using the CCA agreement, which sets out a standard formula to get the number. Under this kind of agreement, all of the interest payments will be largest at the beginning, not at the end.
All of the information held on a CCA agreement is held in a standard format and can be easily understood by anyone. The request process is straightforward, only costing you a £1 for postage too.