Your Guide to Vehicle Finance Claims

Discover our full car finance claims guide and learn everything you need to know!

Finance Fair Play is dedicated to helping consumers reclaim money lost through mis-sold car finance agreements.

Vehicle Finance Claims Guide 2025

In this 2025 guide, we cover the essentials of car finance claims: why you could be entitled to compensation, how to determine eligibility, potential claim amounts, and the process to start your claim.

Understanding Mis-Sold Car Finance

Car buyers often fund their purchase with a personal loan, a finance agreement that leads to ownership, or a lease where the car is returned at the end. Here’s an overview of the most common options:

While the law requires dealerships and finance providers to provide full details of finance agreements, compliance wasn’t always guaranteed, particularly with PCP and HP agreements.

How to make a claim

You can start your claim for mis-sold PCP or HP vehicle finance agreements with our online agreement finder. In just a few minutes, answer some simple questions to help us locate all your vehicle finance agreements you have taken out between 2007 and 2024.

Our team will guide you through the entire process, explaining exactly what’s required. We’ll communicate directly with your lenders and work to secure a fair compensation settlement that reflects the full impact of the mis-selling.

From start to finish, we’ll keep you informed at every stage, ensuring a smooth and transparent claims process.

Personal Contract Purchase (PCP)

With a PCP agreement, you pay for your car in monthly instalments rather than in full upfront. At the end, you can choose to pay a final lump sum to keep the car or return it.

Hire Purchase (HP)

This finance option lets you pay off the car in monthly instalments with interest. After the final payment, you fully own the vehicle.

Vehicle finance mis-selling claims have been highlighted in

What are PCP & HP finance Claims?

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) uncovered that some car finance lenders mis-sold agreements to customers. Lenders used higher interest rates to increase their commission through ‘discretionary commission arrangements,’ a practice that is now banned.

Claims of this type are designed to correct the unfair treatment experienced under PCP or HP agreements. You may have been mis-sold finance if you weren’t informed about commission payments when taking out your loan. Dealers are legally required to explain your agreement in full, including fees, payments, and terms, before you sign.

If you were mis-sold finance, you may have paid more than necessary due to inflated interest rates. Making a claim can help you recover fees lost to these undisclosed commissions.

Eligibility for car finance claims?

To qualify for a car finance compensation claim, you must have taken out a Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) or Hire Purchase (HP) agreement in your own name — not through a business. The vehicle must have been bought between 2007 to 2024, and you need to be a UK resident at the time of purchase.

If you meet these basic conditions, the next step is to check whether your finance deal was mis-sold. Our specialists will guide you through the process, corresponding with your lenders and assessing whether there’s enough evidence to support your claim.

Examples of mis-selling include being charged excessive interest rates or not being told about dealer commission arrangements that increased the cost of your loan. If this happened to you, you may be entitled to claim.

What’s the timeframe for a claim?

The duration of a car finance compensation claim can vary depending on the complexity of your case. The first step involves corresponding with your lenders to determine whether your finance agreement was mis-sold. Early communication with the finance provider is crucial — if they acknowledge responsibility, your claim could be resolved more rapidly.

In January 2024, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched a major investigation into the mis-selling of car finance. As part of this review, the FCA paused lenders’ response deadlines. The investigation timeline has now been extended from September 2024 to May 2025, with the new deadline for lenders to resolve complaints set for 4 December 2025.

Once the FCA completes its review, it is expected to introduce a redress scheme outlining how compensation will be distributed. Until this scheme is published, the exact timeframe for resolving PCP or HP mis-selling claims remains uncertain.

Purpose	Type of Data	Lawful basis for Processing
To contact you following the submission of an enquiry.	Identity, Contact	Consent
To learn about the circumstances surrounding potential financial mis-selling and provide updates as a claim progresses.	Identity, Financial, Transaction	Performance of a contract with you
To recommend to you an appropriate law firm for claims investigation and representation.	Identity, Contact, Transaction	Consent
To collect and share any Special Category Data information with relevant third parties.	Identity, Contact, Transaction	Consent / Explicit Consent (Special Category Data)
Asking you to leave a review or take a customer satisfaction survey.	Identity, Transaction	Consent
To respond to any data subject access requests that we may receive from you.	Identity, Contact	Legal Obligation
Monitoring and Oversight such as recording and monitoring telephone calls and communications.	Identity, Contact, Transaction	Legal Obligation
To administer and protect our business and this website.	Technical, Usage	Legitimate interests
Internal Group Administration	Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage, Profile	Legitimate Interests
To make suggestions and recommendations about other services.	Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage, Profile	Legitimate Interests
Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy	Identity, Contact	Legal Obligation

Settlement amount	Our Fee	VAT @ 20%	Total Amount Owed to Us
£1,200	30% = £360	+£72	£432
£5,000	28% = £1,400	+£280	£1,680
£15,000	25% = £3,750	+£750	£4,500
£30,000	20% = £6,000	+£1,200	£7,200
£50,000	15% = £7,500	+£1,500	£9,000