Your car finance lender is the company that lent you the money and collected your monthly payments. It isn’t always the dealer or the car maker. You can usually find it from your old paperwork, your bank statements, your credit report or by asking the dealer. The FCA suggests the same steps on its car finance claims page.
Why you need to know
If you want to complain about commission on a car finance agreement, you complain to the lender. Our article on who is eligible for car finance compensation explains which agreements are in scope. If you’ve already had compensation, the lender’s letter is what you need to reclaim the tax deducted from the interest.
The FCA’s compensation scheme covers agreements taken out between 6 April 2007 and 1 November 2024, so you may be looking for a lender from many years ago. Some lenders have since changed name, merged or stopped lending.
1. Check your old paperwork
Start with anything you kept from when you bought the car:
- the finance agreement you signed
- a welcome letter or pack from the lender
- annual statements
- a settlement letter, or a letter confirming the agreement ended
The lender’s name is usually at the top of these documents. Look for the company the agreement was “between”, not just the dealer’s name and logo.
2. Look at your bank statements
Your monthly payments were usually taken by direct debit. The name of the company collecting them is normally shown on your bank statement.
If you have online banking, search your transactions for regular monthly payments around the time you had the car. If you no longer have statements going back that far, your bank may be able to provide copies. Banks have their own policies on how far back they can go.
3. Get your free statutory credit report
Credit agreements are recorded on your credit file. The UK’s three main credit reference agencies are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
The ICO’s guidance on credit explains that you have the right to request a copy of your information from any of them, free of charge. On their websites, look for the phrase “statutory report”. You don’t need to sign up for a paid subscription.
There is a limit. The ICO says a settled or closed account may show on your file for six years from the date it was closed. If your agreement ended longer ago than that, it may no longer appear. It’s still worth checking each agency, as they don’t always hold the same records.
When you ask for a report, you’ll usually need your full name, any former names, your current address, any addresses from the past six years and your date of birth.
4. Think about the make of car
Many car makers have their own finance company, often called a captive lender. If you bought a new or nearly new car from a franchised dealer, there’s a fair chance the finance came from the manufacturer’s finance arm.
That isn’t always true. Dealers also arranged finance through independent lenders and banks. Our lenders page lists the main car finance lenders, including manufacturers’ finance companies, with a page on each.
5. Contact the dealer
The dealer that sold you the car arranged the finance, so it may have a record of which lender it used. Give them your name, the car’s registration if you know it and the approximate date you bought it.
If the dealer has closed or been taken over, the business that took it over may still hold records.
If you think you know the lender
If you have a good idea which lender it was, you can ask it directly. Under data protection law you have the right to ask an organisation for a copy of the personal information it holds about you. This is called a subject access request. The ICO explains how to make one. It’s free in most cases.
Once you’ve found it
If you’ve already received compensation, check the lender’s letter for the gross interest, the tax deducted and the net interest. Those figures show whether any of the tax could be repaid. Our guide to what an R40 form is explains the form used, and our how it works page explains how we can claim it for you. If you had more than one agreement, see our guide to multiple payouts.
Next step
Once you have the figures from your lender’s letter, use our eligibility calculator for a rough estimate of any tax you could get back.