Category Archives: Auto Loans
Low Interest Rate Does Not Always Mean Cheap Loans
Summary: Cheap loans are a reality and not a myth. However, a low interest rate in itself does not mean that the loan is cheap because there may be many other costs involved apart from the interest rate.
The general perception is that a loan that involves low rate of interest is beneficial. This, however, does not hold true in every case. Sometimes, manipulative lenders offer you very low interest rate but they raise the total cost of borrowing by charging loan arrangement fee and early repayment penalty. In this way, a consumer who is not aware of these things may think that he has got a good loan deal from the lender whereas the reality is very far away.
There is a concept of annual percentage rate or APR that has been specially introduced to counter the manipulative tactics adopted by some lenders. APR helps borrowers to compare different loans on an equitable basis. APR is the total cost of availing credit that a borrower has to pay to the lender, expressed in simple annual percentage. APR includes interest rate and all other costs and fees relating to a loan.
Since all the loans are expressed in terms of an APR, a standard practise in the UK loan industry, the loans have become comparable on equitable basis. Any borrower who wants to take a loan should compare it on the basis of APR, the best available measure of finding out cheap loans.
The low rate loans available with the banks and other financial institutions may require you to fulfill some conditions. The banks may ask you to provide a loan guarantee by placing your home as a security. This requirement becomes indispensable for the lenders when you want a large amount of loan, say £100,000. Lenders want to ensure that the loan that they are advancing to the consumer is backed by a concrete security. If you are ready to oblige a lender by giving your home as security, you can easily get low rate loans. In such a situation, the lender may also overlook any other shortcoming that you possess like a not so good credit rating.
In a bid to take cheap loans, you should not forget the real purpose for which you are taking a loan. It is very important that the loan fulfills your entire financial requirement and the ultimate purpose, whatever it may be. If you are confronting a situation where two loan offers are available, one slightly expensive than the other, then you should decide on the basis of collateral benefits that you are likely to derive out of two offers. The interest rate becomes unimportant in such a scenario.
My Loan Co-Signer has Died – Will I lose my car to the estate?
In order to be approved for credit, about 10% of borrowers in Canada need to give the lending company (usually a bank) assurance in the form of a co-signer. A co-signer is someone who has a good and established credit rating already, and who agrees to assume the debt in the event that the person in whose name the money is lent is unable to pay.
In many cases, the co-signer of a loan is a member of the borrowers family; most other people will not assume the risk, although it could be a close personal friend with a good credit record. In some cases, there is a risk that a co-signer may die before the loan is fully paid back, in which case the borrower may wonder what will happen to the assets purchased with the loan. In this scenario, we will use the example of a car in order to see how the situation will play out.
First of all, it is very important to note one thing; the co-signer of your loan does not, in fact, own the car that you needed to obtain the loan to buy. They are simply a guarantee to the lending company that someone will be able to pay for the car. Ownership will only revert to them if you have defaulted on the loan on your own, and they have had to make the payments themselves. In this case, the paper work will already have been changed to reflect the co-signer as the owner. In this case, you car will be part of the co-signers estate, but otherwise it is your own property.
Of course, the death of the co-signer does lead to other issues, even though the car will still be yours. Probably most significantly, you may have to report to the lending company that you no longer have a co-signer to cover you in case of default. Now, the odds are that if you are a responsible enough person to do this in the first place, you have been sure to make your payments. In that case you should have no problems; heres why.
Remember that the reason you had to have a co-signer in the first place was due to bad or no credit (probably no credit record). Once you have been making payments on a loan, however, you have established a credit record. Lending companies now have a basis on which to approve you for a loan, so you will probably be able to secure the loan without the need of a co-signer.
Of course, most people will probably not even think of informing the lending company should a co-signer die; as long as you continue to make your payments, this will not be an issue. If you do default, though, and the co-signer is responsible, your car will become part of the estate.