Please think long & hard before you commit to a car on the motorbility scheme.
If your DLA stops for any reason they with take the car back regardless of any down payment, some have been taken back after only one week, mine was taken after a year.
There is NO appeal & they won’t accept any back payments from any source other than DLA, so you also lose your down payment (they give back a small proportion, an insult as it happens).
I have since been awarded higher rate ‘indefinatly’ after a home visit from an ATOS Dr, but after my experience I would still think twice.
My car was taken straight to auction, so as I was told by motorbility there was no chance at all of saving it…oh & no payment for the tow kit that we had fitted!
Motorbilty changed from being helpful to being very cold to deal with…not a nice experience.
I am sorry if this post worries anyone, but I would rather you thought twice than get caught the way I did.
A sad tale H,but thanks for sharing. I reckon that ‘cos the Motability has been abused by some for so long that they have had to get their poo in one pile quickly and all the’goodness’ has been lost.I’ve long thought that a bank loan on the strength of the Mobility Money MAY be a cool way of buying a cheap decent car from a trustworthy garage and factor in some sort of a maintenance and recovery scheme.I’ve got a Flexi-loan which is very handy. It’s £100 a month,and I didn’t bother with the sickness cover oddly enough.
As an aside some the Motability schemes available are a huge rip off. A scooter which may be £2,000 ish from a reputable mobility emporium is suddenly more than £4,000,with no better warranty or maintenance scheme.
The Breeze 4 I just bought was an X-motorbility one, hardly used & in near new condition for a fraction of the price, there is no way I would have a scooter through the scheme.
As for maintenance on the cars, the first car we had was fine until after it’s first service, after that it ran like a bag of nails…but that is the garage that is at fault, the Volvo dealership in question must have put used chip fat in when they did the oil change…
Buggy is fine, not been up the field yet, but it will, you know me.
Livestock all great, Robert now knows I bought a Shetland pony, some women hide shoes, not me! Kaja is great, no more Laminitis thank goodness & Gaius is growing at an alarming rate, I think he’s going to make at least 15hh, his mum is 13.2hh & his dad is 14.1hh…so where his height is coming from heaven only knows! We are about to take on 2 moggies that live where we keep the horses because Fliss is moving back down south, Cola(9yrs) & Mouse(2yrs)…
Hazelwah, i dont know anything about DLA, but are you saying they stopped it, took the car because you lose entitlement without DLA; refused to return your down payment and then on appeal they returned your DLA? If so, on its return, do they still refuse to reinstate you with a car or your down payment?
I wonder if this could amount to what is called an ‘unfair contract term’ under consumer protection legislation. Maybe check this out with Citizens Advice or a solicitor. Presumably the withdrawal of DLA happened under the terms of recent legislation that changes the criteria for DLA and it may only have been enacted or come into force after you signed up under the Motability Scheme creating a circumstance that you would not have been able to take into account in deciding whether to take on the risk of signing up. This might be a relevant consideration.
It may also be relevant to the argument of unfairness that there is no provision for a return of your downpayment eventhough there is no error/fault on your part but with the Government appointed agent for assessing DLA.
Presumably it is also relevant that Motability agents are acting as the agents of the Government and the Government has brought about a situation of manifest unfairness that they could not have intended.
Perhaps you could seek damages from the agency assessing you for DLA for their negligence in wrongly assessing your entitlement and causing you to suffer a substantial loss through loss of the down payment and the use of the motability vehicle. Mabe the MS Society would to fund the legal advice you need to check this out.
They did return a small proportion of the down payment. Motorbility didn’t stop the DLA, but if payments stop, they stop providing you with a car regardless of the reasons behind it. We did nothing wrong, but we were the ones to suffer.
It’s a good job we have another car that is capable of towing our caravan, in fact we spent some of our out of court settlement (a long story) on a bigger caravan because our own car can tow a very big one.We are lucky, but the thing that bothers me is the fact that for some people their car is the only way they have of getting about & if that is taken away they can be stuck.
The reason DLA stops makes no difference to motorbility & your car is taken directly to the auction so there is no way you can ever get it back even if you win an appeal…they will not give you another car unless you start from scratch with another down payment & as happened to us, anything you add, you lose…ie; our tow bar. You could go for a zero down payment car, but for us none of the cars in that group suit our needs.
That is an interesting thought & thank you for passing that on, I hope it can help anyone else who finds they are in the same situation.
Sadly I think I am between a rock & a hard place because the DLA say they never received my renewal paperwork & to be honest after the last 2 years (legal battle) I cannot be ar5ed with it, the car has gone & would have been sold during that same week…a lesson learned, don’t trust any goverment body with paperwork, ALWAYS send recorded delivery or do as I did when I was told I had to complete a NEW claim, do it online.
Thanks for the briefing H ,it means something to me if nobody else. Suzi has gone as I got fed up waiting for her to snap out of her carreer related ‘coma’. Wasn’t happening after six months and I’ve got better things to do. The cat has gone and I miss him a lot more.
Apparently a ferret can make a good pet, so I’ve been asking around the locals.Won’t be happening if it is in any way cruel,and if it needs the occasional walk on a lead,that could be arranged. A parrot would be marvellous apart from the mess and poo flinging,but it would get used to it.
Looks like you might get some joy with the Motability.I need a full report when you go up the field. Actually I’m only interesrted in the coming down.
The legal action was nothing to do with motorbility, the oldies on here know what it was about, but we are ‘gagged’ since winning out of court so can’t explain.
I just wanted to add that when I hit black ice 2 years ago (nothing else involved) they expected me to assess the damage. Sadly I do not jest. Even tho the garage had noted the damage to both ends of the car they only authourised to front to be fixed as I hadnt told them re the back!
Any loophole they will use. A letter stating that I wasnt an assessor eventually did the trick and all was fixed-but was a nightmare and I was without my own car for 2 months (they did supply temp car)