Remains Unregulated

On 15 July 2026 Buy Now Pay Later became a regulated product. That is true of the product. It is not true of the agreement you already hold.

The instrument that did it, SI 2025/859, applies to agreements "entered into on or after the regulatory commencement date". The regulator puts the consequence in one sentence on its own website: "Any DPC agreement that you have taken out before 15 July 2026 will also remain unregulated. The new protections won't apply to these agreements."

The FCA counted 10.9 million UK adults using this product in a single year. Almost everything they are still paying off is on the wrong side of that line.

And the reform is narrower than the coverage suggested even where it does apply.

• Section 75 stops at a hundred pounds. Section 75(3)(b) excludes any claim relating to "any single item to which the supplier has attached a cash price not exceeding £100". That is most of what this product is used to buy, and nobody has said so.
• Seventeen sections of the Consumer Credit Act were switched off for deferred payment credit by article 2 of the same instrument, including the section 77 request, the arrears notice in section 86B and the default notice in section 87. The standard debt advice does not work here, and this book shows what to send instead.
• Fourteen days to withdraw. Section 66A survived. It is not in the list of removals, and it lets you unwind the credit without giving a reason. Nobody at the checkout mentions it.
• A time order written for this product alone. Article 2(20) inserted section 129(1)(bza), which lets you apply to court once the lender tells you it intends to demand the balance or terminate.
• And the provision that reaches the unregulated ones. Section 140C(1) defines a credit agreement as "any agreement ... by which the creditor provides the debtor with credit of any amount", so the unfair relationship provisions apply to your pre-July agreements, and section 140B(9) puts the burden on the creditor to prove the relationship was not unfair.

Thirty-six short chapters. Which of your agreements is which, what each rulebook actually contains, and what to do on either side of the line.

United Kingdom. Nothing is sold in it and free help is named.