Complaints about car finance commission

This page will tell you how we may be able to help if you have a complaint about car – or motor – finance commission, including details of and updates on:

• the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) temporary complaint-handling rules
• how court proceedings could affect the handling of these complaints.

We publish separate guidance about other car finance complaints. 

When you get a new or used car, you might use a car finance agreement. This might be arranged with the car dealership. The car dealer, or another credit intermediary, may have arranged a finance agreement between you and a finance provider. The finance provider may then pay commission to the car dealer or credit broker.

A discretionary commission arrangement (DCA) is when the finance provider pays the car dealer commission – or a fee – based on the interest rate paid in the car finance agreement. The car dealer can set or adjust this interest rate. Often, the higher the interest rate, the more commission the car dealer will receive.

The FCA banned DCAs in January 2021.

There are other types of commission arrangements that car dealers and finance providers may use. Apart from DCAs, they mainly use:

• fixed rate – finance providers pay a fixed amount of commission to the car dealer, usually a percentage of what is borrowed
• flat fee – the finance provider pays the car dealer a fee for every finance agreement they process or arrange.

You may have recently heard about car finance commission in the news.

• In January 2024, the FCA announced it was carrying out a review of 'discretionary commission arrangements' (DCAs).
• On 19 December 2024, the FCA announced it is extending the temporary complaint handling rules it introduced in January 2024 to include complaints about motor finance agreements where a non-discretionary commission arrangement was in place. As a result, financial businesses don't have to reply within the usual time limits. They will have until 4 December 2025 before they have to start answering complaints again. 
• As the customer, you also have longer to bring your complaint to us – until at least July 2026.
• The FCA is planning to announce the findings of their review and next steps in May 2025.

You might bring a complaint to us because you believe: 

• you weren’t told the car dealer would get commission from the finance provider for arranging the finance 
• the way your car finance agreement was arranged wasn’t fair
• the advice, information or recommendation the car dealer gave you was not impartial, because they were influenced by the commission – or fee – they’d get from the finance provider
• the car dealer didn’t give you the best interest rate available .

The FCA is looking into discretionary motor finance commission arrangements. If it finds that consumers have lost out because of widespread misconduct, it will look at how to make sure consumers get compensation.

You can find out more about this on the FCA’s website.

You can still make a complaint while the FCA carries out its review. But be aware that the rules, for financial businesses who are handling complaints about car finance, are different at the moment.

Temporary rules for complaints

The temporary rules apply to your complaint if:

• you got a motor vehicle on finance. This could be a car, van, campervan, or motorbike, and includes hire purchase agreements, such as ‘personal contract purchases’, and motor leasing agreements 

  – often called 'hire agreements'

• the finance provider and car dealer had a commission arrangement in place.

For complaints about agreements that had a discretionary commission arrangement, you will also need to have:

• got the motor vehicle on finance before 28 January 2021
• made a complaint to the car dealer or finance provider between 17 November 2023 and 4 December 2025, or
• received a final response to your complaint from the business between 12 July 2023 and 29 January 2026.

For complaints about agreements that had a non-discretionary commission arrangement in place, you will also need to have:

• made a complaint to the car dealer or finance provider between 26 October 2024 and 4 December 2025, or
• received a final response to your complaint from the business between 21 June 2024 and 29 January 2026.

The business must tell you if it isn’t going to answer your complaint because of the FCA’s temporary complaint-handling rules. You can still complain to the finance provider or car dealer, but they have more time than usual to respond to your complaint. 

If the temporary rules apply to your case, you may have longer to bring your complaint to us after receiving a final response letter from the business. The business will let you know if this applies to your case.

Other time limits may also affect whether we can or can’t help with your complaint.

Our service is free and easy to use. 

You don’t need to pay anyone to represent you, for example a lawyer or claims management company (CMC). But if you want you can ask a family member, friend, or someone else, to help you with your complaint. 

1. Before bringing your complaint to us, you should make a formal complaint to the company involved. Talk to your car dealer or finance provider and tell them you are unhappy and want to complain. This will give them a chance to look at what happened and put things right.
2. They should tell you whether they’re going to rely on the FCA’s temporary complaint-handling rules. If so, they won’t respond to your complaint and we won’t be able to help you until the temporary rules end.
3. If you don’t hear back from them, it’s worth allowing them some extra time. The important thing is to keep records of all communication, especially of making your complaint. But if you made any complaint about motor finance after 26 October 2024, we probably won’t be able to help at this point.
4. If the business responds to your complaint – and tells you that you can bring your case to us if you’re unhappy with the response – you can. But you will have longer to bring your complaint than the usual six months. You won’t have to send it to us until 29 July 2026.
5. If you have a vulnerability, for example, a serious illness, please let us know when you bring your complaint. We’ll ask you to provide information, for example:
   
   • the credit agreement – sometimes called a ‘hire purchase’ (HP) agreement or ‘personal contract purchase’ (PCP) agreement
   • the ‘initial disclosure document’ (IDD)
   • any pre-contract information
   • adequate explanation documents
   • standard European consumer credit information
   • any other information provided to you by the car dealer
6. But, for the moment, we won’t be able to assess your complaint, because of various cases going through the courts. 

What to expect from us

As well as the FCA’s review, there is ongoing legal action involving complaints about commission arrangements in motor finance that could have an impact on our work on complaints that involve similar issues.

While the FCA review and court proceedings take place, we’ll continue to progress the cases that are with us as far as we can.

We want to make sure we have the information we need to assess a complaint as soon as it is appropriate to do so. So, to prepare things as far as possible, we may:

• set out the key facts of the case
• share them with you and the business you’ve complained about, and
• ask you if you agree with the facts.

But for the time being, we won’t be able to give you an assessment of your complaint.

We will update this page and add an announcement to our news section whenever there is something you may need to know.

Once we have investigated your complaint, if we decide you’ve been treated unfairly by the financial business – or that the business has made a mistake – we will ask them to put things right.

The exact details of how we’ll ask the business to put things right will depend on the nature of the complaint, and how you lost out. Our general approach is that you should be put back in the position you would have been in if the problem hadn’t happened.

We may also tell them to pay you compensation for any distress or inconvenience  you have suffered.

Car finance complaints on the FCA’s website. 

If you’re a financial business looking for information to help you resolve complaints, read more on handling complaints about car finance commission.