ProblemInstallments
When a qist plan moves to another person
A plan cannot simply change names. Close the old one, check the new buyer as a stranger, and write a fresh schedule around what he actually earns.
A qist plan cannot simply change names. What you are being asked for is a new plan with a new buyer, on the same goods, and the honest way to do it is to close the old one, settle what has been paid, and write a fresh plan you would have agreed to from the start.
Three ways this request reaches your counter
It almost never arrives as a clean question. It arrives sideways, from somebody who has already decided.
A man taking a motorcycle on installments loses his job and his brother-in-law offers to take over the rest. A woman paying for a sewing machine is moving to another city and her sister wants to keep it. A buyer three payments into a fridge has already handed it to a neighbour, taken cash from him, and now comes to tell you the neighbour will pay you the remainder.
The third version is the one that causes trouble, because it is not a request. It is an announcement about goods you have not been paid for, made by somebody who has already spent the money.
Whatever the version, the words are the same: "Just put it in his name." And that sentence hides the whole problem, because a plan is not a name. It is an agreement with a particular person about a particular amount, and moving it to somebody else is not a correction. It is a new agreement.
Why it cannot simply change names
Think about what you actually agreed to when the plan was made.
You looked at one man's income and decided how much he could pay each month. You may have taken a guarantor who agreed to stand behind that man, not behind whoever he chooses later. You set a down payment, a schedule and a total, and every one of those numbers was chosen for the person in front of you at the time. That is exactly what building a fair qist plan means.
Now somebody else is being pushed into the middle of it. His income is different. His reliability is unknown to you. He was not there when the terms were explained, so he has heard them from a man who wanted him to say yes.
A renamed plan against a new plan
Check the new person as if he were new
Because he is. Whatever he is to the first buyer, to you he is a stranger asking for goods on installments, and he gets the same look you would give anybody.
Before you agree to anything
- Meet the new buyer alone, for ten minutes, without the first one
- Ask him what he earns, and how often it arrives
- Ask him what he thinks the balance is, before you tell him
- Ask what he already pays elsewhere every month
- Look at the first buyer's payment record before deciding
- Ask where the item is right now, and who is holding it
Two of those deserve saying plainly.
Meet him alone. The first buyer will want to bring him, explain for him and answer for him. Thank him and ask for ten minutes with the new man by himself. Half of these arrangements fall apart in that ten minutes, and they fall apart cheaply, before you have written anything.
Ask him what he thinks he owes. Ask it before you tell him. This one question catches most of the trouble, because it is astonishing how often the two men are carrying different numbers. The first buyer has told him "just Rs 20,000 left" when the balance is Rs 34,000, and if you find that out three payments later you have a fight with a man who genuinely believes he was cheated.
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The money: who owns what has already been paid
This is where families fall out, and it has nothing to do with you until you make it your problem by staying vague.
The first buyer has paid a down payment and some installments. In his head, that money is his and the new man should hand it back to him. In the new man's head, he is taking over a part-paid item and the balance is all he owes. Both positions are reasonable. They are also incompatible, and they are not yours to settle.
Say a fridge sold on a plan totalling Rs 96,000
An example, not a real sale. What the two men settle between themselves is never the shop's business.
Your position is simple and you should say it out loud, once, in front of both of them: the shop's books show what has been paid and what is left. What passes between the two of you is your own matter, and the shop has no part in it.
Then write the balance on a slip and hand a copy to each of them. That single piece of paper prevents almost every version of the argument that follows, because both men now hold the same number from the same source.
The goods, the guarantor and the papers
Three loose ends, and each one has caused a real loss for somebody.
The goods. In the version where the item has already moved, get the transfer written properly and get it soon. You are now owed money by one man for goods sitting in another man's house, and if it goes wrong, both will say the other has it. A short note naming the item, its number if it has one, and where it now lives, signed by both, costs you five minutes.
The guarantor. The old plan's guarantor is released the day the old plan closes, and he is not carried over to anybody. This is not generosity, it is fairness: he stood behind a person, not behind an item. Tell him it is finished, in a sentence, so he does not hear a rumour later and decide you were using his name. If the new plan needs a guarantor, and it usually does, the new buyer brings his own, and the ordinary rules for when to take a guarantor apply exactly as they did the first time.
Write the new plan, do not stretch the old one
Once the new buyer checks out, do the paperwork properly. It takes ten minutes and it is the whole protection.
Close the first plan on its own page: total, paid, balance, closed on this date, item transferred. Then open a fresh plan in the new man's name for that balance, with a schedule built around his income, not the schedule the first man was managing.
That last point is the one shopkeepers skip, and it is what breaks these plans. The first buyer was paying Rs 6,500 a month because he earned weekly and could carry it. The new man is paid monthly and can manage Rs 4,000. Carry the old schedule over unchanged and you have built a plan that will fail, and then you will be dealing with a missed installment that you designed yourself.
Stretch the months instead. The balance does not change, the payment fits the man, and the plan finishes.
One more thing, and it matters: do not add anything to the balance for the trouble of transferring it. No charge for the change, nothing on top for lateness, nothing extra because the new man is a bigger risk. If the risk is too big, refuse the transfer. If you accept it, you accept it at the balance as it stands. The one-time profit was set when the original plan was made and it is already inside the total; adding to it now turns a fair arrangement into something a man will feel cheated by, and he will tell the street.
When the answer should be no
Sometimes the right thing is a straight refusal, kindly given, and it is worth knowing the shapes.
Say no when the new man cannot answer basic questions about his own income, when the two of them will not sit in front of you together, when the balance is nearly the whole value and the goods have already gone somewhere you cannot see, or when the request arrives as an announcement rather than a question.
And say no when your own instinct says the first buyer is using this to walk away from a plan that was going bad. Look at his payment record before you decide. A man who paid nine on time and then hit real trouble is a different case from a man who missed four of his first six and has now produced a cousin.
If you refuse, offer the honest alternative rather than a closed door. The first buyer can sell the item himself and clear the balance from what he gets, which usually leaves him better off than any transfer. Or he can return it, if that is a thing you do, and settle up on the terms you set when the plan was written. And if what he actually needs is more time rather than a different buyer, that is a separate conversation and often a better one, because the choice between udhaar and a qist plan on a big item has more room in it than most shopkeepers use. Either of those is cleaner than a plan carried by a man who never really agreed to it.
Keep both plans visible
The reason this goes wrong months later is almost always the record, not the people.
If the old plan is quietly edited into the new man's name, nobody can ever show what was paid by whom. If the two plans sit side by side, one closed and one running, the whole history is readable by anybody who asks: what the first buyer paid, the date it was handed over, and what the new man has paid since.
That is how it works in Wasoolo. The first plan closes with its own record intact, the new plan starts fresh under the new customer with its own schedule, and each man's page shows only what he actually paid. Nobody has to remember, and nobody has to be believed, which is the entire point of writing anything down.
Can I just change the name on the existing plan?
No. Close the first plan and write a new one for the balance. A renamed plan hides who paid what, and it is the version that ends in an argument nobody can settle.
The first buyer wants his paid amount back from the new man. Is that my job?
No. Give both of them the same written balance and say plainly that what passes between them is their own matter. Never hold or pass that money yourself.
Does the old guarantor stay responsible?
No. He stood behind a person, not an item, and he is released when that plan closes. Tell him so directly, and let the new buyer bring his own.
Should I add something for the trouble of the transfer?
No. Nothing goes on top for the change, for lateness, or for the new man being less known to you. If the risk is too big, refuse instead.
The item has already been handed over without asking me. What now?
Get both men in front of you, write down where the item is and who has it, and decide the transfer from there. Do not leave goods you are owed for in an undocumented house.
Can I keep the same monthly amount to finish sooner?
Only if it fits the new man's income. Build the schedule around what he actually earns, even if it means more months. A plan sized for somebody else fails.