Hire Purchase in UK Law

This hire purchase agreement was, at the material time, more analogous to a simple hiring than to a purchase. It had a contingent option to purchase of which the defendant might have availed himself in two years time but in September the defendant could, as a hirer, refuse to go on with the transaction since the plaintiffs, in spite of repeated requests, were still consistently refusing to honour their obligations.

I base ay decision on this: In a hire purchase transaction there are two proprietary interests: the Finance Company's lnterest and the hirer's interest. If the hirer wrongfully sells the goods or the benefit of the agreement, in breach of theAgreement, them the Finance Company are entitled to recover that they have lost by reason of his wrongful act. That is normally the balance outstanding on the hire-purchase price. But they are not entitled to more than they have lost.

The object of the Court is to do justice between the parties, and the Court will do its best, if satisfied that there was an ascertainable and determinate intention to contract, to give effect to that intention, looking at substance and not mere form. It will not be deterred by mere difficulties of interpretation. Difficulty is not synonymous with ambiguity so long as any definite meaning can be extracted.

Mr. Iwi in his argument pointed out a number of matters in which it cannot be denied that the dealer is the agent of the Finance Company. The dealer holds the necessary forms; he hands them over to the hirer to sign; he forwards them to the Finance Company; he receives the deposit as agent for the Finance Company: he receives from the Finance Company information that they are willing to accept the transaction; and he is authorised to pass on that communication to the hirer.

What is required to put him, so far as money can, in the same position as if the contract had been performed? To my mind, it is a sum equal to the cost of hiring a similar car on similar terms as to the eventual option to purchase for £1. There is no reason whyone should not adopt as the figure of that cost what Mr. Tolly actually has to pay to the Company for the like hiring in the present case, to wit, £90 and £47.

Its purpose was mutual protection within the financing of Hire Purchase in connection with motor vehicles. The average current registration hire purchase agreements is approximately 4 million; about 98% of all hire purchase agreements relating to motor vehicles are registered with H. P. I. All the major finance companies are members of H. P. I. 80% of the financing of hire purchase in relation to the acquisition of motor vehicles is done by about ten finance companies.

2. Hire Purchase Information Ltd. does not warrant or guarantee that it has a complete record of every vehicle the subject of a hire purchase agreement or that it has a complete up-to-date record of those vehicles which were at one time but have subsequently ceased to be the subject of a hire purchase agreement.