Computer says NO

Bloody cars and all things motoring are a royal pain in the arse.

A while back, I made a post about my upcoming lease car replacement decision, and that time is only 4 weeks away now. I applied to the lease company well in advance, and they went about doing their thing to arrange for the new car to be sorted. Imagine my disdain when the message came back that my finance had been declined by the underwriters due to “weak bank statements”?

It’s a bit like the rent/mortgage conundrum in that you can be paying rent plus bills for years and years without any issues, but when it comes to applying for a mortgage which often costs way less in repayments than the rent, you’re rejected because of some ridiculous anomaly in a credit report or whatever. I’ve been covering car lease payments with the same provider for years, but this time some jobsworth has decided to make my life difficult in a twenty second decision based on looking at three pieces of paper.

The lease broker is appealing the decision with the help of supporting documentation that I’ve provided, but I’m pretty sure they’ve made up their mind. The annoying thing is that they’ll enter a credit rejection onto my record so that any future lending will be affected - meaning I could be in a world of shit if I can’t secure the use of a reliable car for my job. Second hand cars are a liability when you need to be mobile all day, every day, and the thought of reverting to a shite petrol car and all the expense it entails is just grim.

I’m just waiting for a statutory credit report to arrive so it can be sent off, and we’ll see what happens. In the meantime I’ve extended my current lease for 3 months - which ironically will be way more than the new car would cost on a monthly basis. Common sense never accounts for anything when “computer says no”.