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My wife and I signed a four-year lease with Volvo for one of their XC40 models in October last year. However, we didn’t realize that my wife was expecting twins.
When they were born in June, it quickly became apparent that our family of five (me, my wife, my toddler son, and my twins) couldn’t all fit in the car.
We asked to end the contract, but Volvo said we would break it with three years to go and would have to pay the 40 per cent early termination fee of £6,384 on the £15,960 left to pay. Please help.
KF, Warrington, Cheshire.
Sally Hamilton responds: When he took delivery of his smart new Volvo SUV, it seemed like the perfect car for a family of four, which is the kind of vehicle he hoped it would be. Your wife had already become pregnant at the time, but it would be many weeks before you received the exciting news that you were having twins.
However, once your children were born in early June, you and your wife became distracted trying to fit your new family of five into the available space. Basically, the vehicle was too small for them all to travel together.
He was frustrated by the fact that the middle rear seat does not have an Isofix point, the device that allows child seats to fit directly into fixed points in a car. And when the two infant seats were installed in the spaces on either side, she discovered there was no usable space left to secure her three-year-old son’s seat with a seat belt.
The current lease means you have to make monthly payments for four years and return the vehicle to Volvo at the end of the period. Feeling trapped, you debated changing the deal to hire a larger member of the XC range, but this was well beyond your budget (which you had already maxed out with your existing deal). He dismissed the idea of getting a second car to help transport everyone as equally unaffordable.
If he could end the lease on the Volvo, which has 35 of the original 48 months remaining, that would allow him to look for a manageable lease on a second-hand alternative that could accommodate the whole family. But when he approached Volvo in July, they said no, and a new complaint led to a final rejection in August.
Meanwhile, the tension was mounting on you for other reasons. His twins have plagiocephaly, meaning they both wear corrective helmets 23 hours a day to help reshape the flattened areas of their skulls.
This means the family must travel to many medical appointments, and the difficulty of getting all the children in the car made daily life stressful. Additionally, taking the family to visit her father, who is currently in the hospital with cancer and an hour’s drive away, was nearly impossible.
I felt sympathy for his plight and, with such extenuating circumstances, calculated that Volvo might reconsider its position and release him from paying the termination fee on a goodwill basis.
You have done nothing contractually wrong by rejecting your claim to escape the agreement early and eliminate the fee. But as a brand that highlights its appeal to families, I thought I could be more flexible and save you the trouble of going to the Financial Ombudsman to rule on your complaint – the only path I believed was left after the carmaker issued your final answer. to his complaint in August.
After intervening to plead your case, I’m pleased to tell you that Volvo changed several gears and, within a couple of days, reversed its decision and agreed to allow you to terminate the contract free of charge, saving you £6,384.
You and your wife were delighted. When we caught up this week, you said Volvo would pick up the car on Friday.
Meanwhile, you step on the accelerator in search of a second-hand seven-seater alternative, also on a renting basis.
Why don’t they pay me my teacher’s pension?
I worked full-time as a teacher from 1995 to 2003, so I am entitled to a pension from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. This should have started being paid when I turned 60 in April; Now we are in September and I still haven’t received anything. Can you help me?
Name withheld
Sally Hamilton responds: The Teachers’ Pension Plan has not met its schedule.
The plan says it aims to process applications for retirement benefits within ten business days of receiving all necessary information. About 10,000 teachers retire each year, which is a significant number, but this should not surprise pension administrators.
He completed and returned the forms in January, three months before his retirement date, and waited to receive the monthly payment starting on his 60th birthday. But nothing came.
If any of his students had been so bad at handing in their assignments, he would have punished them.
You got in touch in May and were told they required your birth certificate. You weren’t told this before, but we sent you a copy anyway. He confirmed that nothing further was needed to process his pension.
Another month passed and still nothing. He called again and no one could explain the reason for the delay, but they certainly published new forms.
Did the dog eat the first game? And maybe the second set too, which didn’t arrive either.
When he contacted me in mid-September, his frustration was at its limit. The pension was almost six months late and you estimated that you were owed around £3,300.
After my intervention, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme finally got to work and contacted you a day later to apologize, but neither you nor I got an explanation for the delay.
However, he confirmed that the late payments were in his account a few days later.
The plan eventually came around, but my report on the handling of your request is “could do better.”
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