Finance check
If there’s still finance owing, the car isn’t really theirs to sell.
Around 1 in 4 used cars on UK roads is on a finance agreement at any given time. If it’s sold to you while still on finance, the lender — not you — owns it. They can repossess it, even after you’ve paid the seller in full.
1 in 4
used cars on active finance
£32M
we’ve flagged in 12 months
£8,200
median outstanding balance
How it happens
A seller is upside-down on their HP or PCP — they owe more than the car’s worth. They sell it privately at a price below the settlement figure, pocket your money, and never settle with the lender. The agreement stays in force. Your car becomes the lender’s collateral.
What to look for
Sellers who refuse to provide the V5C in advance. Adverts on auction-aggregator sites with vague provenance. Prices that look 10–15% below comparable listings. Any pressure to complete in cash, off the books, or before you’ve had time to run a check.
How we check it
We run the VRM and VIN against every UK lender on the Experian and Equifax HPI partner network. Where there’s an active agreement, we surface the lender, the start date, the type of finance, and — where the lender will tell us — the approximate outstanding balance.