How to find your old car finance agreements

The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) proposed motor finance redress scheme means you do not need to instruct a solicitor to bring a car finance mis-selling claim and could receive any compensation that is due without charge.

However, one potential shortcoming of the regulator's proposals is that the scheme is set out to be largely lender-led, meaning that, if you do not bring a claim yourself, you will be reliant on your lender contacting you to inform you that you are owed money.

We explore the risks of waiting to hear from your lender, and how you may miss out on compensation if you choose to do so, in our outline of the benefits of using a solicitor for your car finance claim.

In contrast, should you choose to pursue and manage your claim yourself, here are nine ways you may be able to locate your old car finance agreements to help you build your complaint.

1. Check your paperwork

When you took out your car finance agreement, the broker would have provided you with some physical documents, and you may also have received a welcome pack from your lender.

If you still have these documents, they should contain information that will be essential to building your car finance claim, such as the agreement number, deposit paid, monthly payments, and the term of your agreement. Reading these may also help you identify whether any commission paid to your broker was disclosed.

In addition to a welcome pack, you may have received paperwork associated with a settlement offer or a final settlement statement at the end of your agreement. These documents, if you have them, will also include most of the information you need to bring your car finance claim.

2. Check your emails

Your broker or lender may have given you the option to receive documents relating to your agreement electronically or may have provided you with your finance documents via email instead of, or as well as, sending a physical copy.

If you do not have any physical paperwork, search your inbox for your lender’s name or the name of the business where you bought the car, if you remember them or for terms like ‘car finance’ or ‘motor finance agreement.’

3. Check your bank statements

If you remember having car finance but cannot remember who your lender was or exactly when you took out an agreement, your old bank statements can be a goldmine of information.

If you are looking through paper statements, look for payments marked as ‘DIRECT DEBIT’ or abbreviated to ‘DD’ or ‘DDR.’ If you have a lot of direct debits or general bank account activity, look at the payments out column if you can remember approximately how much you paid each month. Even if you cannot remember your exact monthly payment, your motor finance payment will probably have been one of your higher outgoings along with your mortgage or rent payment, so look at the larger outgoings first if you find yourself completely stumped.

A more efficient approach may be to use your online banking platform or app. As well as being able to view both existing and historical direct debits, you will also be able to search for lenders by name. Remember to set your search filters back as far as possible; you may be due motor finance compensation for agreements taken out as far back as April 2007.

4. Check your credit file

You can access your credit report at no cost with Experian, Equifax or TransUnion. Third-party platforms like ClearScore and Credit Karma also allow you to do this; they pull their data from Equifax and TransUnion, respectively.

Checking your credit file will allow you to see car finance agreements from at least the last six years; however, you will not be able to see older finance agreements, and your credit report may lack essential information that would help you to bring a claim, such as the vehicle registration and the specific terms of your motor finance agreement.

5. Check saved passwords

Depending on when you had car finance and who your lender was, you may have had an online portal where you could check your payments, the status of your agreement, request a settlement figure, see what your ‘balloon payment’ would be, and much more.

If you saved your username and password in your internet browser, or remember what they were (your username is likely to have been your email address), you may still be able to access some details of your agreement if you try to log in to your old online account.

6. Check price comparison websites

If you usually search for car insurance via websites like MoneySuperMarket or Compare the Market, you may be able to discover details about your old vehicles if your historical quotes are stored.

This data may help you:

• identify your lender, if the finance arm of a vehicle manufacturer provided your motor finance.
• match vehicle details and timings to agreements you can see on your credit file, but where you are lacking additional detail.

7. Search for old insurance documents

Similarly, if you have kept your old car insurance documents or emails from your insurers, these will also include your car registration, make and model details, and may help you identify a lender or provide more information if you know who your lender was.

8. Contact the dealership

If you remember where you purchased the vehicle or took out your agreement, but do not remember who provided the financing, try contacting the dealership directly.

Even if they cannot provide you with your finance agreement or details, they may be able to confirm which lenders they worked with during the year you bought your car, which may allow you to narrow your search and send data requests to a smaller pool of potential lenders.

9. Write to your lenders

As of November 2025, car finance complaint handling remains paused until 4 December 2025, with the FCA likely to extend this to 31 July 2026 to align with the publishing of its final redress rules.

However, you can still write to lenders and ask what details they hold about you and your historical car finance agreements via a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR). This is a legal right under UK data protection laws, and your lenders have to reply within one month; however, they have up to three months to provide you with your data should you make a complex request or multiple requests, but they must inform you within the initial month that they will take longer to deal with your request.

Once you have this data, you should have enough details to write to your lender and start your car finance mis-selling claim.

Note that your lenders may have destroyed your records if your motor finance agreement concluded six or more years ago, or if you have previously asked them to do so under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Or Harcus Parker can help

Although the FCA’s proposed redress scheme is good news for motorists, it does carry a significant risk that many mis-sold consumers will not receive the compensation they are due if lenders are unable to contact them or no longer hold their records.

In contrast, one of the benefits of instructing a solicitor for your car finance claim is that they can investigate your historical motor finance agreements and identify your lenders right back to 6 April 2007, the start of the period covered by the regulator’s redress scheme, to ensure you receive compensation for all agreements where you were mis-sold. A solicitor can also investigate whether you have the potential to bring additional claims, such as for mis-sold GAP insurance, mis-sold cosmetic, alloy and tyre damage insurance, or even an irresponsible lending claim against your lender or lenders.

Register your car finance claim with Harcus Parker here.