Remember with a personal loan the vehicle is not connected to the funds and you are personally responsible for the money.
Less risky to finance the vehicle directly. Remember you don't have to fully finance the vehicle to get a good deal. Often 30% cash upfront and finance the rest will give you good buying power to negotiate on.
Don't get that. Surely if you finance the van directly and fail to keep up the payments they send someone round to take the van away. If you are not personally responsible, who is?
If you default on the Van and it's on HP it's less risky for you and the lender because they can simply take the van back and you won't incur any personal debt. And it won't go any further, especially if more than half the term has elapsed, as you can hand it back if you can't afford it anymore.
If you take out a loan not connected to the van and defualt on the payments you might have the van for a while but it's more risky for you. Since the debt isn't secured on anything they will simply apply for high court enforcement and eventually collect the payment from you by either personal seizure of goods and vehicle or both plus collection fees and statutory interest.
The really interesting thing is on this basis your van is protected on HP therefore less risky. If you for whatever reason get into other debts whilst your van is on HP as long as you prioritize the HP payments over your unsecured debts even if you have collection from the high court they cant seize your vehicle as it's the property of the HP company enabling you to keep working.
I know this because I took legal advice when I was faced with my tax bill making me bankrupt. And they advised me to get a van on HP before going bankrupt as they would not be able to seize it. So I did over 4 years and shortly after buying the van made myself bankrupt and they cou
So you think it is better to just hand a van back that you have paid over half the payments for 
If you take a personal loan and pay over half of the payments you will have an asset.
Goodness me...It's very simple.
If you take a personal loan out on a van and just pay half of that loan, ALL your assets are at risk. As you are personally liable for the remainder of the money and anything you own including your van can be seized by the high court to pay off the balance.
If you take out finance on the vehicle just the vehicle is at risk if you default and nothing else is at risk.
It's not difficult to understand.
Plus many don't really understand what an asset it. A van is not an asset, it's a Liability as it costs money to run, depreciates, and can break down. Your van only becomes an asset when it's time to liquidate it for sale or if you hire it out.
A van is an asset not a liability, the depreciation and motoring costs are expenses
Sorry....with respect....no... your completely wrong. This is why so many people fail to understand what an Asset is.
A van is
shown on the balance sheet as an "asset", as that's the value of the item on liquidation. You can only represent the value of the item on liquidation at any one time which is why you write down the deprecation over the years. That's the point, the fact that the deprecation is written down is what quantifies its value on liquidation.
The van is a liability because, it
causes you to have costs (fuel, repairs etc) The van only becomes an asset if you sell the vehicle, because it no longer causes expenses and you have converted the tangible value to monetary value. If you have a business that hires out vans, these are assets to you because they make you money, if you have a business that sells vans, they are assets because they make you money.
In the sense business use, your van is a liability and will always remain a liability because it causes you to have expenses.
Asset= An item/business that earns you money.
Liability= An Item/business that costs you money.
Expense= Money paid to a liability/Asset