Buyers to be reimbursed if items repossessed

Hire Purchase Bill

The Hire Purchase bill was on Wednesday tabled and read for the first time in the National Assembly by Legal Affairs Minister, Senior Counsel Anil Nandlall.
In the document, which was published in the Official Gazette in November through Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, there are provisions for the buyer to be released from all liability and be entitled to recover from the owner, all sums paid under the agreement, when the seller recovers possession.
Hire purchase is governed by a common law whereby the consumer pays a sum of money monthly towards the purchase price. However, only until the final purchase price is paid, the customer becomes the owner.
Under the current legislation, if an item is bought on hire purchase and the final payment is missed, the company has the right to repossess the item. This bill would offer protection by abolishing the forfeiture.
“This section shall not apply in any case which the hirer or buyer has determined the agreement by virtue of any right vested in him,” it clarified.
In the bill, Clause 23 states that where goods have been let under a hire-purchase agreement or sold under a conditional sale agreement and less than 50 per cent of the purchase price has been paid, the “owner or seller shall not enforce any right to recover the possession of the goods unless he has given the hirer or buyer a notice of his intention to do so”.
“The owner or seller may, on the expiration of 21 days after the notice has been given to the hirer or buyer, enforce his right to recover possession of the goods,” the document added.
Additionally, where damages are awarded against the owner in the proceedings, the Magistrate’s Court may treat the buyer as having already paid in respect of the hire-purchase price or total price, in addition to the actual amount paid, number of damages and damages as the court sees fit. This can be remitted in whole or part.
Last month, President Irfaan Ali had shared the need for protecting consumers in the business system during the American Chamber of Commerce’s Annual General Meeting. This, he said, would provide some fairness to the consumer.
“Without consumers, businesses will flounder. My Government is committed to providing greater protection to consumers. A proposed hire purchase bill will provide much-needed protection for consumers who procure items on credit or through the hire purchase agreement.”
Dr Ali had added, “Currently, the law provides that once a consumer defaults on a single payment, the owner is entitled to forfeit all the previous payments and to repossess the item. This can hardly be fair to the consumer. The bill reforms the unconscionable practice.”
Meanwhile, AG Nandlall was quoted as saying by the Department of Public Information that this is being done to protect the interest of the hirer since the current law is “tremendously harsh and leaves no remedy to a defaulting hirer”.