These Regulations may be cited as the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 2010.

Where the condition in paragraph (2B) is satisfied on a date on or after 26th August 2010 and before 1st February 2011 in relation to a prospective regulated consumer credit agreement to which section 58 of the Act applies, these Regulations apply to that agreement (and to any subsequent regulated consumer credit agreement entered into before 1st February 2011) from the date and time the condition is satisfied.

In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—

• “the Act” means the Consumer Credit Act 1974;

• “advance payment” includes any deposit and in relation to a regulated consumer credit agreement includes also any part-exchange allowance in respect of any goods agreed in antecedent negotiations to be taken by the creditor in part-exchange but does not include a repayment of credit or any insurance premium or any amount entering into the total charge for credit;

• “the APR” means the annual percentage rate of charge for credit determined in accordance with Schedule 4 and the F12total charge for credit rules;

• “cash price” in relation to any goods, services, land or other things means the price or charge at which the goods, services, land or other things may be purchased by, or supplied to, the debtor for cash;

• “contract of shortfall insurance” means anything in writing which contains or purports to contain some promise or assurance (however worded or presented) that if a sum payable under a contract of insurance against loss of or damage to goods is less than the amount necessary to defray—

  1. a

     any amount of credit provided to finance the purchase of those goods, and

  2. b

     any other amount included in the total charge for that credit,

  to the extent that these remain unpaid at the date of the loss or damage, a sum up to but not exceeding that shortfall will be paid;

• “credit intermediary” has the same meaning as in F3section 61A of the Act;

• “distance contract” means any regulated agreement made under an organised distance sales or service provision scheme run by or on behalf of the creditor who, in any such case, for the purpose of the agreement makes exclusive use of one or more means of distance communication up to and including the time at which the agreement is made. For this purpose, “means of distance communication” means any means which, without the simultaneous physical presence of the creditor or a person acting on behalf of the creditor, and of the debtor, may be used for the making of a regulated agreement between the parties to that agreement;

• “earlier agreement” means an earlier consumer credit agreement for the provision of credit;

• “exempted agreement” means an agreement of the description specified in the Schedule to the Consumer Credit (Notices of Cancellation Rights) (Exemptions) Regulations 1983 M2 in relation to which there are no charges forming part of the total charge for credit;

• “the Information Regulations 2010” means the Consumer Credit (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2010 M3;

• “lettering” includes figures and symbols;

• “modified agreement” means an earlier agreement as varied or supplemented by a modifying agreement, which is treated as—

  1. a

     revoking the earlier agreement, and

  2. b

     containing provisions reproducing the combined effect of the two agreements;

• “pawn agreement” means a regulated consumer credit agreement under which the creditor takes an article in pawn;

• “pre-contract credit information” means the information required to be disclosed by regulation 3(4) of the Information Regulations 2010;

• “total amount of credit” means the credit limit or the total sums made available under a consumer credit agreement;

• “total amount payable” means the sum of the total charge for credit and the total amount of credit payable under the consumer credit agreement as well as any advance payment;

• “total charge for credit” means the total charge for credit determined in accordance with Schedule 4 and the F2total charge for credit rules;

• F4“the total charge for credit rules” means rules made by the Financial Conduct Authority under article 60M of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001 for the purposes of Chapter 14A of Part 2 of that Order;

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

These Regulations apply in respect of a regulated consumer credit agreement except as provided for in F8paragraphs (1A) to (5).

These Regulations do not apply to an agreement mentioned in paragraph (3) unless pre-contract credit information has been disclosed in compliance (or in purported compliance) with the Information Regulations 2010.

Paragraph (2) and regulations 3 to 4 and 6 to 7 do not apply to an authorised non-business overdraft agreement or an authorised business overdraft agreement.

Regulation 5 does not apply to a regulated consumer credit agreement which is also a distance contract unless the agreement is entered into by the debtor wholly or predominantly for the purposes of a business carried on, or intended to be carried on, by him.

Article 60C(5) and (6) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001 applies for the purposes of paragraphs (3)(c) and (5).

Documents embodying a regulated consumer credit agreement shall contain the information set out in column 2 of Schedule 1 to these Regulations in so far as that information relates to the type of agreement referred to in column 1.

The information specified in Schedule 1 shall be presented in a clear and concise manner.

For the purposes of this regulation, the requirement for the information to be “clear” includes a requirement that the wording, apart from any signature, is to be easily legible and of a colour which is readily distinguishable from the background medium upon which the information is displayed.

Documents embodying a regulated consumer credit agreement, other than an exempted agreement, shall contain statements of the protection and remedies available to debtors under the Act, in the Form numbered in column 1 of Schedule 2 to these Regulations and set out in column 3, in so far as those statements relate to the type of agreement referred to in column 2.

Documents embodying a regulated consumer credit agreement shall contain details of any security provided in relation to the regulated agreement by the debtor.

The information specified in paragraphs 5, 6, 7, 11 and 14 of Schedule 1 to these Regulations in relation to the type of regulated consumer credit agreement referred to in column 1 shall be “the prescribed terms” for the purposes of section 61(1)(a) of the Act (the terms which must be contained in a document if a regulated consumer credit agreement is not to be improperly executed).

The document containing the prescribed terms of the regulated consumer credit agreement referred to in paragraph (1) shall contain a space indicated for the purpose of the debtor's signature.

In Scotland any provision in paragraph (3) requiring the said document to be signed shall be complied with by a body corporate if the document is properly executed in accordance with the law of Scotland.

Where an agreement is intended to be concluded by the use of electronic communication nothing in this regulation shall prohibit the inclusion in the document of information about the process or means of providing, communicating or verifying the signature to be made by the debtor.

These Regulations shall apply to a modifying agreement which varies or supplements an earlier agreement and which is, or is treated under section 82(3) of the Act as, a regulated agreement.

Where an item of information required by regulation 3(1) or 8(1) is unchanged by the modifying agreement, the requirements of regulation 3(1) or 8(1) may be satisfied in relation to such item of information by a statement in the modifying agreement clearly indicating that the information in the earlier agreement remains unchanged.

F9Except as provided for in paragraph (3A) a statement referred to in paragraph (2) shall be contained in the document which is signed by the debtor.

Where a modifying agreement is an authorised business overdraft agreement or an authorised non-business overdraft agreement the document referred to in paragraph (3) does not have to be signed by the debtor.

The information referred to in regulation 4(1) as prescribed terms for the purposes of section 61(1)(a) of the Act shall not be prescribed for the purposes of a modifying agreement if the information contained in the earlier agreement has not been varied or supplemented by the modifying agreement.

Any such note shall not be treated as part of any Form specified in the said Schedules and may be reproduced in addition to any such Form.

Where any such note requires any words to be omitted, those words shall be omitted or deleted.

Where words are shown in capital letters in any Form specified in Schedule 2 or 3 to these Regulations, and are reproduced in documents embodying regulated consumer credit agreements, they shall be afforded more prominence (whether by capital letters, underlining, larger or bold print or otherwise) than any other lettering in that Form except lettering inserted in accordance with paragraph 1(c) and no less prominence than that given to any other information in the document apart from the heading to the document, trade names, names of parties to the agreement or lettering in the document inserted in handwriting.

For the purposes of paragraph (1), the requirement for the information to be “clear” includes a requirement that the wording is easily legible and of a colour which is readily distinguishable from the background medium upon which the information is displayed.