Legal costs to fight RCI Mobilize (Renault Battery lease)

Many drivers of Renault electric vehicles are stuck in battery lease contracts, and were completely unaware when taking on the lease that it would be extremely expensive and time consuming to end the battery lease.

I do not believe that the Renault finance (aka RCI/Mobilize) battery lease contract is enforceable as it does not conform to consumer protection legislation and I am willing to test this in court if enough people 'chip in' to help cover legal fees.

For information, to exit the battery lease you have 3 options

If the car develops a fault and is not worth fixing (repair costs can be very high) then the first option is not applicable, the second option is subject to a random price calculation by Mobilize finance, which in some cases varies (for the same year of vehicle, with them stating that mileage has no bearing) between £600 and over £2,000 and the third option can be extremely difficult to enact and quoted costs for this vary between below £1,000 and over £1,600.

I started small claims action against Renault as I tried to return the battery via a dealership that said they could handle electric vehicles (as per the process advised to me by Mobilize finance) but it was fruitless, they had no idea what to do. Mobilize quoted me over £2,000 to buy out the battery, which had a resale value of around £500 so I started legal action. The buyout price has now been quoted to me at around £1,000 which just shows how insane the whole setup is !

I would like to expand my current legal case against Renault to be a wider test of the battery lease contract. It is due to go to court in the next few months unless I agree to stop it, and unfortunately it will involve considerable legal fees to properly test the contract. I would like to get the contract tested in court as I believe we have a strong case that the contract does not conform to consumer protection in even the most basic sense, for example that fees and charges should be laid out in any contract when they are not, moreover they are excessive and seem to vary at the whim of Renault finance (Mobilize).

I really hope this will be a wakeup call to Renault finance, and will initiate a change in their processes to be more transparent, or at the very least provide a court's opinion on the contract and its validity that will help other people in similar situations.

If the funds cannot be used for the fees associated with the legal case against Mobilize (Renault finance) then they will either be refunded or donated to a local charity.

Thank you for reading and I hope you can spare a few pounds to get this moving.