If you’ve refinanced your car loan, you’ve taken a big step towards a more stress-free and better financial life. Congratulations! That’s a great thing to celebrate.
If you’re like most people, though, chances are you’re not too sure what comes next. It’s a good idea to know what to expect because then you can make sure everything gets done as expected during the hand-off from one lender to another.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, especially if you refinance through Upstart. Here is what’ll happen after you refinance your car loan:
1. Pay off your old lender
First, your old lender will need to be paid off.
Many auto refinance platforms or lenders will handle this step for you, including Upstart. In this case, your new lender will simply send a check to your old lender, and you won’t need to do anything at all. Once your old lender receives the check, deposits it, and it clears, your old loan will be completely paid off and show a zero balance.
This is one of the most important pieces to know: until your old lender shows a balance of $0, you will need to keep making your normal payments on your old loan. Just because you’ve been approved for a car refinance doesn’t mean everything happens immediately.
To play it safe, keep up with the payments on your old car loan so you don’t get hit with a late fee and get a ding on your credit score. Once your old loan is paid off though, you’re free from it! You won’t need to worry about sending them payments anymore.
2. Transfer the title
In most states, your current lender gets to keep your car’s title while you’re paying off the loan. So, since you’re transferring lenders, you’ll also need to make sure the title gets transferred over too.
Again, many lenders or lending platforms will do this automatically for you, including Upstart. But if you’re going with another car refinance lender, it’s a good idea to check and make sure that your old lender sends your car’s title to your new lender.
3. Start payments with your new lender
The in-between time between when you’ve been approved for a car refinance and when your old lender is paid off can be tricky. Technically, you have two loans at that point — and both will need payments until one of them is closed out.
That’s why your first payment due date isn’t until 30 days after you’ve been approved for a car refinance through Upstart. This will be ample time for us to pay off your old loan for you. After that, you’ll be responsible for making your new monthly payments on your new car refinance loan.
At Upstart, you can easily set up recurring monthly payments on autopay right in your account dashboard. This is the best option because then you’ll never have to worry about missing any payments.
4. Finish paying off the loan and get the title
Now all that’s left to do is finish paying off your new loan. If you’ve set up autopay, it’ll essentially run on autopilot and you might not have to do any further management until your loan is completely paid off.
Once your loan is paid off, congratulations! You now own the car outright, and you’ll have no more loan payments to make. You still have one last step to do, though. You’ll need to ensure that your lender sends you your car title, since you’re the sole owner of the vehicle now.
If you’ve moved and forgotten to update your address, now’s a good time to do so in case they accidentally send the car title to your old home. Once you have the title in hand, make sure to store it in a safe place (and celebrate!).
Compare car refinance options with Upstart
If you follow these simple steps, you can refinance your car with a lot less hassle than you might think.
But if you’re still wondering if you should refinance your car, consider this: in addition to the time-saving steps we offer in smoothing out the ride between your old lender and your new one, we also offer advanced ways to save. By leveraging Upstart’s AI platform, Upstart-powered banks can help you get the lowest rates, without pricey upsells or add-ons, and offer a wide range of loan terms to help you find the best loan possible.
Car refinance loans not available in IA, MD, NV, or WV.
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