SALLY SORTS IT: I’ve been made redundant – now Santander charges £8,376 to cancel my car lease

In November last year I was fired as a warehouse manager.

I have also been seriously ill due to a stroke and am worried about my finances.

To help reduce my costs, I requested the return of my BYD Atto 3 electric car, which I acquired through a lease agreement with Santander.

The bank says I have to pay around £8,376 to end the lease early. That would be almost my entire severance package. Please help.

RG, Bridgend, South Wales.

Sally Hamilton replies: You have experienced the wars. Not only did you suffer the stroke you’re talking about in November 2023, but three months later you were struck by sepsis and underwent life-saving surgery.

To help you get around – and to make it easier for your wife to visit you in hospital – you decided to buy a new car,

signing a five-year lease contract for your electric car in December 2023 for £446 per month.

Then, due to the death of a colleague, you returned to work in February to care for him, despite still needing a catheter, a stoma and crutches to get around.

Other health problems then arose, making life difficult. and finally, in November 2024, your company was hit with the blow that it was making your role as a supervisor redundant.

Dismayed by the huge impact on your finances of being out of a job, I can imagine your added fear when Santander told you that the redundancy payment would be almost as high as the £9,000 your employer promised in redundancy payments.

Lease agreements are popular because they allow drivers to get a new car and spread the costs at a manageable level over the years before returning the vehicle to the provider. The longer the lease, the more affordable the repayments.

But there are downsides for those who want or need to end an agreement early, as many leasing companies do not allow the contract to be canceled or impose a hefty penalty, usually half of the outstanding payments – as in your case.

I felt sorry for your situation and asked Santander if there was anything they could do to help you in your dire circumstances by at least reducing the sentence.

The bank investigated your case and a few days later I am pleased to say that it has gone further and decided to let you terminate the lease without any penalty.

A Santander spokesperson said: ‘We are sorry to hear about the challenging personal circumstances RG is currently facing. Due to these circumstances, we have decided to waive his fee, as part of our commitment to supporting our clients in difficult times.”

In the meantime, you still need some form of transport and have applied for a vehicle through Motability, a charity that leases vehicles and electric wheelchairs to people on disability benefits, with benefits paid directly to the charity to cover the lease.

You have been offered the higher mobility element of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) of £75.75 per week, saying this covers the lease and all other costs including maintenance, services, MOT, breakdown cover and insurance.

How can we raise a stink about stolen perfume?

My 97-year-old mother ordered an £88 bottle of perfume online from Boots last August and it was delivered within a few days.

She had gone outside at that moment and the package was on her doorstep. When she picked it up upon her return, the package underneath was open. There was no perfume in it.

Boots has refused to refund her. Can you help?

JN, Horley, Surrey.

Sally Hamilton replies: You talked about the efforts your mother went to to get her money back – or another bottle of $88 Miss Dior perfume.

The story had a hint of customer service stubbornness, and it left you and your mother furious.

After several weeks of back and forth with Boots, your mother was told that the ‘digital operations’ team had investigated and made sure that the package had left the warehouse intact and had been dispatched.

successfully delivered and it would therefore not provide her with a refund.

She accepted that the package had been delivered, but this could in no way be described as successful.

Some opportunistic thieves had apparently taken it.

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a retailer must ensure that goods reach the customer in one piece. If a package is left outside the front door and becomes trapped, as in this case, the retailer must offer a replacement or refund.

If a customer had previously indicated that deliveries could be left outside, the jury would decide whether a refund was due. But this was not the case with your mother.

You told me she rarely orders anything online, apart from her Tesco food shop, and if she were forced to name a safe place it would be her neighbour’s house and not her visible front door.

You have submitted a complaint on behalf of your mother, including in writing to the director of Boots. But the company continued to deny her a refund.

I have asked Boots to look again at the handling of your mother’s complaint. This time the retailer admitted there was an error.

A spokesperson for Boots said: ‘We always strive to provide a high level of service and are sorry that we have not met our usual standards this time. We will contact the customer directly to arrange a full refund.’

• Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk – include telephone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organization stating they are given permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send any original documents as we cannot take responsibility for this. The Ny Breaking cannot accept any legal liability for any answers given.