Car finance in the UK is often taken out by two people together. A couple buying a family car. A parent helping an adult child onto the road. Two friends splitting the cost of a vehicle they'll share. Whatever the arrangement, joint finance agreements are common — and when something goes wrong with the deal, the question of who can complain and who gets the money back isn't always straightforward.

This is an area that doesn't get discussed as often as it should, particularly given the scale of the ongoing car finance mis-selling review in the UK. Millions of agreements were taken out jointly, and plenty of those agreements may have been mis-sold. But if you were one of two people on a finance deal, understanding your individual position — and how it relates to the other party — matters before you take any steps.

This article covers how joint car finance agreements work legally, who has the right to complain, how compensation is calculated and distributed, and what to do if your personal circumstances have changed since the agreement was signed.

How Joint Car Finance Agreements Work

When two people take out a car finance agreement together, both parties sign the credit agreement and both become liable for the debt. In legal terms, this is typically a joint and several liability arrangement — meaning each person is individually responsible for the full amount owed, not just their share of it.

In practice, the lender can pursue either or both parties for repayment if payments are missed. If one party stops paying, the other is expected to cover the shortfall. This is the same structure used in joint mortgages and joint personal loans, and it has the same implications: your financial position is tied to the other person's behaviour under the agreement, whether you like it or not.

On a PCP deal, both parties are also bound by the end-of-contract conditions — the mileage limit, the condition of the vehicle at return, and the options available at the end of the term. If there's a dispute at the end of the contract — excess mileage charges, damage charges — both names on the agreement are in the frame.

Understanding the full scope of a joint agreement is something many people weren't clearly told at the point of signing. Our comprehensive guide to missold car finance claims in the UK covers the broad range of ways these agreements were put together unfairly — and joint agreements are no exception.

Can Either Party Complain, or Does It Have to Be Both?

This is one of the most common questions, and the answer is reassuring for most people: either party to a joint agreement can make a complaint independently.

You do not need the other person's permission to raise a complaint with the lender or to refer a case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You are an individual signatory to the agreement, with your own rights under UK consumer credit law and the FCA's regulatory framework. Those rights belong to you regardless of what the other party on the agreement decides to do.

This is significant for a number of reasons. Relationships change. Couples separate. Friendships fall out. In many cases, the two people on a joint finance agreement are no longer in contact, or the nature of the relationship makes it difficult to act together. The fact that you can act independently means you don't need to wait for the other person, coordinate with them, or involve them in the process if that would be difficult or impossible.

That said, if both parties want to complain together — and the relationship allows for that — there's nothing preventing it, and in some cases a joint complaint can present a fuller picture of what happened during the sales process.

What If the Other Party Doesn't Want to Complain?

This comes up frequently, and it can feel like a barrier when it isn't one.

Perhaps the other person on the agreement doesn't believe they were mis-sold anything. Perhaps they're not aware the issue exists. Perhaps the relationship has broken down and any kind of joint action is off the table. None of this prevents you from raising your own complaint.

The lender will need to investigate the agreement as a whole — they can't look at your experience in complete isolation from the fact that there were two parties involved — but the complaint itself can originate from one party, and any outcome will be assessed in that context.

Where it can get more complicated is at the compensation stage, which we'll come to shortly.

The Mis-Selling Question in Joint Agreements

For a mis-selling complaint to succeed, you need to show that something about the sales process failed — that important information wasn't disclosed, that the terms weren't properly explained, that an affordability check wasn't adequate, or that a commission arrangement inflated the interest rate without your knowledge.

In a joint agreement, the sales conversation happened with both parties present — or at least it should have. In practice, a lot of car finance sales conversations are directed primarily at one person, with the other present but not actively engaged. The person whose income was being used to support the affordability assessment received most of the explanation. The other person signed the paperwork.

That imbalance is relevant. If you were the secondary party on an agreement — your name went on the form, but the sales process was conducted mainly with your partner or co-applicant — and you weren't given a clear explanation of the terms, interest rate, commission, or end-of-contract conditions, that's worth raising.

Similarly, if the affordability assessment didn't properly account for your individual financial position — your own income, your own debts, your own outgoings — that's a failure of the lender's obligations towards you as an individual party to the credit agreement.

Our article on car finance affordability checks and when lenders should have said no goes into detail on what a proper assessment should look like and where lenders frequently fell short.

Hidden Commission in Joint Agreements

The discretionary commission arrangement issue — where dealers and brokers could earn higher commission by setting a higher interest rate — applies equally to joint agreements. Both parties paid the inflated interest. Both parties were affected by the commission arrangement not being disclosed.

If your agreement was signed before January 2021, when the FCA banned discretionary commission arrangements, there's a real possibility that a hidden commission was involved — regardless of whether one or two names were on the agreement.

Our article on whether your car finance commission was hidden explains how to identify the signs that a discretionary commission arrangement may have applied to your deal, and what that could mean for a complaint.

Who Receives the Compensation?

This is where joint agreements introduce the most complexity, and it's important to be clear-eyed about it.

Compensation in a car finance mis-selling case typically represents a refund of the excess interest paid — the difference between what you were charged and what you should have been charged if the deal had been structured fairly, plus statutory interest at 8% per year on those amounts.

In a joint agreement, that interest was paid from a joint account, a shared pot of money, or from the respective contributions of two people. The question of who is legally entitled to the refund will depend on several factors:

Who made the payments? If payments came from a joint account, the position is more straightforward — the refund notionally belongs to both parties. If one party made all the payments from their own account, they have a stronger individual claim to the refund.

How the lender and FOS approach it. In practice, lenders and the Financial Ombudsman Service will often direct any refund to the account from which payments were made, or to the primary named party on the agreement. This doesn't mean the other party has no entitlement — but it may mean there's a subsequent conversation needed between the two parties about how the refund is divided.

The relationship between the parties. If you and the other party are still together and on good terms, dividing a refund is likely a simple conversation. If the relationship has ended — particularly if finances were contested in a separation — it can be more complicated, and may require separate legal advice to resolve.

Whether both parties have complained. If both parties raise independent complaints, the lender and FOS will need to consider them together, since they relate to the same agreement. This doesn't mean the complaints cancel each other out — it means the outcome will need to account for both parties' positions.

For a clearer picture of what compensation might look like in your specific situation, our article on what compensation might look like in car finance mis-selling cases is a useful starting point.

Separated or Divorced Since the Agreement Was Signed

This is a scenario that deserves its own section, because it comes up regularly and adds a layer of practical complexity.

If you took out a joint car finance agreement with a former partner and the relationship has since ended, you may be wondering whether you can still make a claim — and what happens to the money if you do.

The short answer is: yes, you can still claim. The end of the relationship doesn't affect your rights under the credit agreement. You were a party to that agreement, and if it was mis-sold, you have grounds to complain.

The more complicated question is what happens to any compensation awarded. If your financial separation from your former partner has been formalised — through a financial consent order in a divorce, for example — the position of any subsequently received refund may be relevant to that settlement. This is an area where it's worth taking independent legal advice, particularly if significant sums are involved.

If the separation was less formal and finances weren't specifically addressed, the practical reality is often that whoever makes the complaint and provides the bank details receives the refund — and the division of that money is then a private matter between the two of you.

Our article on what evidence helps a missold car finance claim covers what documents you'll need to support your case — and for joint agreements where you may not have access to all the paperwork, knowing how to request records from the lender directly is particularly useful.

What If the Other Party Has Already Made a Complaint?

If the other party on your joint agreement has already raised a complaint — without your knowledge or involvement — you should still be able to raise your own. You're an independent party to the agreement with your own rights.

It's worth letting the lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service know that you are raising a separate complaint about the same agreement, so they can manage the two cases appropriately. They may choose to consolidate them or handle them side by side — but either way, your right to be heard as an individual is not removed by the other party having acted first.

If the other party's complaint has already been settled — a refund has been issued and the case closed — the position becomes more complex, and you may need advice on whether the settlement extinguished the rights of all parties or only those of the party who complained. This is a more technical area, and it's worth getting specialist support.

HP vs PCP: Does the Type of Agreement Matter?

Joint agreements exist across both Hire Purchase (HP) and Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) products, and the mis-selling issues that apply to each type are broadly the same in a joint context.

However, HP agreements — where the car is owned outright at the end of the term — can involve different end-of-contract disputes than PCP deals. If you exercised the right to voluntary termination under Section 99 of the Consumer Credit Act (the 50% rule), for example, both parties on the agreement have relevant rights in that process.

Our article on hire purchase mis-selling and what went wrong covers the specific ways HP deals were sold unfairly, and most of those issues apply equally to joint agreements.

What to Do If Your Application Was Handled Unfairly

In some joint applications, one party's credit profile was used to support an application that might not have been approved on a single applicant basis — and that individual may not have been given a proper explanation of the implications of being named on the agreement.

In other cases, one party was added to the agreement almost as an afterthought, without the sales process properly addressing their individual circumstances, income, or understanding of the terms. This can amount to the same kind of inadequate advice and disclosure that characterises single-applicant mis-selling.

If you were the secondary party on a joint application — the one whose name went on the form but who wasn't really the focus of the dealership conversation — it's worth having your specific experience assessed. Our article on rejected car finance applications and when dealer advice crosses the line is relevant here: it covers how the application process itself can go wrong, which applies whether one or two names end up on the final agreement.

For a clear understanding of the two main legal routes available — misrepresentation and unfair relationship — our article on the difference between misrepresentation and unfair relationship in mis-sold car finance explains both clearly and is worth reading before you decide how to frame a complaint.

Other Claims You May Not Have Considered

If you've been involved in a joint car finance agreement that may have been mis-sold, it's always worth taking stock of whether there are other financial issues worth addressing at the same time.

If you've ever taken out high-interest credit — payday loans, catalogue accounts, or similar — during a period of financial difficulty, payday loan claims UK operate on the same irresponsible lending principles and can be pursued entirely independently.

If you've been the victim of any form of financial fraud, our scam recovery service is available on the same No Win, No Fee basis — and our article on recovery room scams is worth reading before engaging with anyone who contacts you unsolicited about recovering lost funds.

If you're renting a property in disrepair that your landlord has failed to fix, disrepair claims are entirely separate from financial claims and can be pursued at the same time.

Claim First handles all of these areas, and we offer genuinely no win no fee claims across everything we do. If you've been affected in more than one area, we can look at your full situation and support you across every claim with merit.

FAQs: Joint Car Finance Agreements

Do both parties need to agree to make a complaint?

No. Either party can raise a complaint independently. You do not need the other person's permission, involvement, or agreement to proceed.

What if I can't contact the other person on the agreement?

You can still proceed. Your complaint relates to your own rights as a signatory to the agreement. The lender may need to take the joint nature of the agreement into account when responding, but they cannot refuse to engage with your complaint simply because the other party isn't involved.

What if the car was mostly used by the other person?

Who drove the car is largely irrelevant to a mis-selling complaint. What matters is whether the agreement was sold fairly — whether the terms were properly explained, the commission disclosed, and the affordability properly assessed. Both parties signed the agreement and both have rights under it.

Can a joint complaint result in double compensation?

No. Compensation represents a refund of what was overpaid under the agreement — typically excess interest charged as a result of the mis-selling. That amount is fixed by the agreement itself. Both parties can't each claim the full refund — the total refundable amount is the same regardless of whether one or both parties complain.

What if we've already handed the car back or settled the finance?

Settling or returning the car at end of term doesn't prevent a mis-selling complaint. The complaint relates to how the agreement was sold, not its current status. Our article on early termination of PCP or HP covers what happens at the end of an agreement and how that interacts with any subsequent complaint.

Does being on a joint agreement affect my credit file differently?

Yes. Joint credit agreements create a financial association between the two parties on credit files. This means that if one party has a poor credit history, it can affect the other's ability to access credit. A successful mis-selling complaint can include a request for adverse credit markers linked to the agreement to be removed — for both parties, if appropriate.

How long do I have to make a complaint?

The general rule is six years from the date of the agreement, or three years from when you first became aware — or reasonably should have become aware — that you had grounds to complain. Don't assume it's too late without getting your specific situation assessed.

Does it cost anything to find out where I stand?

No. Claim First operates on a strict No Win, No Fee basis. There are no upfront costs and nothing to pay unless your claim succeeds.

Your Name Was on the Agreement — Your Rights Are Your Own

Whether you were the primary applicant or the secondary name on a joint car finance deal, your rights under that agreement belong to you. If the deal was mis-sold — if the commission wasn't disclosed, the interest rate was inflated, the terms weren't properly explained, or the affordability check was inadequate — you have grounds to pursue that independently of what anyone else on the agreement chooses to do.

Claim First is a UK-based, FCA-authorised claims management team. We handle mis sold pcp claims and all forms of car finance mis-selling on a strict No Win, No Fee basis. You pay nothing upfront, and nothing at all if your claim is unsuccessful.

Start your claim today — it takes just a few minutes online, and we'll handle everything from there.