Over 36 months, life happens. A salary is late, a business has a bad quarter, someone is ill. Almost every buyer on a long instalment plan will be late at least once, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
How we decide whether you are behind
Your file is compared as a whole, not instalment by instalment. We add up everything that has fallen due to date, subtract everything you have actually paid, and the difference is your arrears. That means:
- Paying ahead protects you. If you paid extra in month four, it is still credited in month nine. You do not lose the benefit because it was not labelled for a particular instalment.
- You can pay any amount. Part of an instalment is better than none and is credited as it arrives.
- A cheque or pay order counts when it clears, not when you hand it over. An uncleared instrument is not money, and crediting it early would only hide a problem from both of us.
What happens, in order
- You are contacted. A call and a message, not a legal notice. Most late payments are an oversight and are settled here.
- Your file is marked in arrears in our system. This is visible to us and to you, and it is the thing that blocks a transfer — you cannot sell your floor while you are behind.
- You are asked for a plan, and we will discuss one. A buyer who tells us in month three that months four and five will be hard is in a far better position than one who goes quiet. Come to us early.
- Continued default has consequences set out in your contract, including cancellation and the deductions that apply on refund. Those are in your signed documents and you should read that clause specifically before you sign.
The refund and cancellation terms
Not published yet
The cancellation and refund schedule — what is deducted, at what stage, and how long a refund takes.
We would rather show you nothing than show you something indicative. This space holds the real document as soon as it exists — not a render of what it might look like. Waiting on: Central Point.
Ask us where this has got toThis is the clause buyers most often discover only when they need it, and the one most often left vague on purpose. It belongs in public, and it will be published here rather than only in the contract.
Until it is, ask for it in writing before you pay a booking amount, and read it. If a seller — us or anyone else — will not give you the cancellation terms in advance, that is your answer about the terms.
What we will not do
- We will not add charges that are not in your contract. If an amount is demanded that you cannot find in your signed schedule, do not pay it — tell us.
- We will not accept a payment without issuing a receipt. Every payment generates one, with a reference and a QR code. A payment with no receipt is a payment we cannot see and cannot credit.
- We will not take a cash payment from you through a dealer without it appearing on your file. Check your file after any payment. If it is not there within a few days, contact us directly rather than the dealer.
The single most useful thing you can do
Keep every receipt, and check each one appears against your file. The disputes that become impossible to resolve are the ones where money moved and nobody recorded it. The QR code on each receipt exists for exactly this reason — it takes ten seconds and it is the best protection you have.