We need a bigger car for our twins but Volvo wants £6,384 to get out of our lease early: SALLY SORTS IT

My wife and I signed a four-year lease agreement with Volvo for one of its XC40 models last October. However, we didn’t know that my wife was expecting twins.

When they were born in June, it quickly became apparent that our family of five – me, wife, toddler and twin babies – couldn’t all fit in the car.

We asked to cancel the contract, but Volvo said we would break it with three years left and that we would have to increase the 40% early termination fee of £6,384 on the £15,960 still to be paid. Please help.

KF, Warrington, Cheshire.

Sally Hamilton replies: When you took delivery of your smart new Volvo SUV, it seemed like the perfect car for a family of four – exactly the type of car you expected. Your wife had become pregnant by then, but it would be many weeks before you received the exciting news that you were having twins.

But when your boys were born in early June, you and your wife became confused as they tried to fit your new family of five into the available space. Essentially the vehicle was too small to travel together.

You’ve been frustrated by the fact that the rear center seat doesn’t have an Isofix point – the device that allows child seats to click directly into fixed points in a car. And when the two baby seats were installed in the spaces on either side, you discovered that there was no usable space left to secure your three-year-old son’s seat with a seat belt.

Under the current lease contract, you must make monthly payments for four years and return the car to Volvo at the end of the period. Feeling trapped, you wondered about switching deals to take on a larger member of the XC range, but this was way beyond your budget (which you had already maximized with your existing arrangement). You’ve dismissed the idea of ​​purchasing a second car to transport everyone around as equally unaffordable.

If you were able to end the lease on the Volvo – which still has 35 of the original 48 months left – you could be looking for a manageable lease deal for a second-hand alternative that can accommodate the whole family. But when you approached Volvo in July, they said no, and a new complaint led to a final rejection in August.

Meanwhile, the pressure on you had increased for other reasons. Your twins have plagiocephaly, which means they both wear a corrective helmet 23 hours a day to help reshape flattened parts of their skulls.

This means the family has to travel to many medical appointments, and the difficulty of getting all the children into the car made daily life stressful. Moreover, it was virtually impossible to visit your father with the family, who is currently in hospital with cancer and is an hour’s drive away.

I felt sorry for your plight and thought that, under such extenuating circumstances, Volvo might reconsider your position and release you from the termination fee on a goodwill basis.

It did nothing contractually wrong by denying your claim to escape the deal early and have the fee dropped. But as it is a brand that emphasizes its appeal to families, I thought it could be more flexible and save you the hassle of going to the Financial Ombudsman to decide your complaint – the only route you think remained after the car manufacturer had given his final answer. to your complaint in August.

After stepping in to plead your case, I’m pleased to say that Volvo has stepped up a gear and within a few days reversed its decision and agreed to let you end the contract free of charge, saving you £6,384 .

You and your wife were over the moon. When we spoke this week, you said Volvo would pick up the car on Friday.

In the meantime, you’re putting the pedal to the metal in your search for a second-hand seven-seater alternative, also available for lease.

Why is my teacher’s pension not paid out?

From 1995 to 2003 I worked full-time as a teacher, for which I receive a pension from the teacher pension scheme. This should have started paying off when I turned 60 in April. It’s now September and I still haven’t received anything. Can you please help?

Name hidden

Sally Hamilton replies: The teachers’ pension system has not kept to its timetable.

The scheme says it aims to process applications for pension benefits within ten working days of receiving all necessary information. About 10,000 teachers retire every year. That is a significant number, but this should not come as a surprise to the pension providers.

You completed and returned the forms in January – three months before your retirement date – and waited for the monthly payment from your 60th birthday. But nothing came.

If any of your students had been that bad at turning in their homework, you would have given them a detention.

You contacted us in May and were told that your birth certificate was required. You had not been told this before, but you sent a copy anyway. This showed that nothing further was needed to process your pension.

Another month passed and still nothing. You called again and no one could explain the reason for the delay, but they posted new forms just to be sure.

Did the dog eat the first set? And maybe the second set too, because they didn’t come either.

When you contacted me in mid-September, your frustration was at boiling point. The pension was almost six months late and you estimated that you owed around £3,300.

Through my intervention, the Teachers’ Pension System finally took action and within a day you were contacted to apologize – but neither you nor I received an explanation for the delay.

However, you confirmed that the overdue payments appeared on your account a few days later.

The arrangement ultimately paid off, but my report on the handling of your application reads: ‘Could be better’.