Do I own the car during a PCP agreement?

Normally no. The finance company retains ownership during the agreement; you have possession and use of the car subject to the contract.

In relation to “Do I own the car during a PCP agreement?”, pCP and hire purchase are credit agreements, so the useful numbers are not only the monthly payment but also total payable, settlement and any end-of-contract amount.

For “Do I own the car during a PCP agreement?”, read the agreement for the cash price, deposit, total amount payable, optional final payment, mileage allowance and return conditions. The monthly payment alone does not show the whole cost.

For “Do I own the car during a PCP agreement?”, possession and ownership are different. Until the agreement says title passes, do not treat the vehicle as an asset you can freely sell.

For “Do I own the car during a PCP agreement?”, this answer is written for a Northern Ireland user, but some vehicle-registration, consumer-credit and insurance functions operate on a UK-wide basis. The attached sources — MoneyHelper - Personal Contract Purchase (PCP), MoneyHelper - Buying a car with Hire Purchase, and nidirect - Contact Consumerline — are therefore deliberately mixed where the responsible authority is UK-wide. That is more accurate than forcing every point into an NI-only source.

Practical next step for “Do I own the car during a PCP agreement?”: open the finance agreement and find the figures or clause relevant to this question. If you are changing or ending the agreement, request the current position directly from the finance provider before promising the car to anyone else.