Helping you understand your legal notice
If you’ve been sent a legal notice, you might not be familiar with some of the terms which are used in it. It’s important that you know what your legal notice is about and the information in it. To help you understand your notice and your situation, we’ve put together a glossary with explanations in plain English.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our glossary describes common transactions in our legal notices, to help you understand your situation.
Why have I been sent a legal notice?
Generally, we send these notices when you’ve missed payments on your motor finance agreement, but there are a few different triggers which can lead to a legal notice.
We know that these notices are difficult to receive and to understand. By law, we must send these notices and the words and layout are often set by law too.
How to read your legal notice
We’ve included two common examples of legal notices, but there’s many different notices you might be sent.
A ‘Notice of Sums in Arrears’ tells you the total amount of money you owe: this is the one you should look at when you make a payment.
We might also send you a ‘Subsequent Notice of Sums in Arrears.’ This is the same type of notice, but by law we must send it again after six months. We’ve explained a bit more about these notices here.
The law says it’s important that you know about your financial situation with us, so we must send these notices every six months until you’re back on track.
A ‘Notice of Sums in Default’ tells you about the additional fees and charges we apply to your account because you’re behind with payments. It explains how much we charge you because you owe that money. We’ve explained a bit more about these notices here.
You can find help to manage your finances online
There are lots of resources online to help you manage your finances. For example, Moneyhelper.org.uk is a government run website with lots of free, independent advice.