lindros2

Just for information purposes, has anyone transferred or purchased their way out of a lease (long before end of lease period)?

I heard this is possible (buy the entire value of car and then re-sell it) but wanted more info.

How would this work?

thx
-josh

Majorhouse

Depending on your contract, most lease buyouts are just the balance of the payment due. For example, lets say your lease payment is $400 with 10 months left on the lease, your buyout would be $4,000. Simple enough, right? Wrong. You need to check with the leasing company because there are often "early termination" penalties included in the lease contract. On my last lease, the leasing company had a clause in the lease that held the leasee liable for any difference between the contractual residual value of the car and the amount that it was sold for at auction if returned outside of the final 6 months of the lease. That is why I really had to wait to lease my '04 TL.

Check your lease contract and call your leasing company with any and all questions before you walk into the Acura dealer.

Good luck,

MNP

I just got out of my RSX lease (Chase Auto Finance) New York.. I found an interested guy and he had a choice of 1. buying the car directly from Chase for a set price plus sales tax, with absolutely no fees added. or 2. assuming the lease which carries a $250 fee and takes 4-6 weeks to transfer. The buyout only takes a week.

But of course, companies have different policies.

lindros2

thanks guys - this helps (from two different company perspectives)

lindros2

Update to this -- Honda Financial Services told me that there are quite a few options.

1. You can trade it in and get a new Acura car (no idea of penalty but there's got to be one)
2. Sell it to a "CarMax type" of place (their words)
3. Pay off the entire lease (doesn't sound like a good option)
4. Do a "voluntary re-possession" - walk away and get hit on your credit

-josh

automata

Paying off the entire leas is not that bad of an option assuming the payoff is< what the car is worth. I knew a guy who wanted to get out of his lease on a Legand. He took out a loan, paid off the lease, then sold the car privately. He ended up with a few grand to put toward a new car.

Oswald Vater

There's a website called "swaplease.com" (or something similar) that allows you to post a lease for possible buyout by other parties. Might want to check it out for additional information or do a google search if I posted the site wrong.

chlbkl

I work at a car financial service company. I get this asked all the time.
Just to share some thoughts.

1) penalty = negative equity (difference between your payoff vs what the dealership is willing to offer you) Your payoff eg. 30k, dealer says I'll help you out and offer you 27k, negotiate the difference, settle it somehow. But you're often upside down, no matter what.

2) again, same as #1, CarMax is just an online / internet dealer

3) close end lease agreement, you signed the dotted line, you agreed to keep the vehicle till maturity date but now you changed your mind, since it's a close end lease (non-negotiable). Option is to pay your remaining payments and walk away but later billed for excess wear & mile charges.

4) hurts your credit for 7 years. penalty -- forget about refinancing your house -- credit card companies can possilby raise your interest rate as well because of bad credit. LAST AND FINAL RESORT.

If you have a lease, make sure you are willing to keep the vehicle till maturity date.
But if you like the vehicle enough, buy it, otherwise you'll be paying the sales tax for the lease and then the sales tax again for the payoff. I can go on and on, I'll stop.

markjrenna

I used these sites to get out of a prior lease.

http://www.leasetrade.com/

http://www.takemypayments.com/index.php

http://www.swapalease.com/default.asp

http://www.leasetrading.com/home.asp

Once someone is interested, the whole process may take 2 months to complete. These sites give you information regarding each leasing company and their specific policy.

To make your car more attractive to a perspective lease assumer, you may want to offer an incentive, aka cash.

It worked for me.

Mark

BarryH

AHFC doesn't allow assumption of their leases. Third parties like leasetrader.com won't help you. The only way to "trade" a lease is if the lessor qualifies the new lessee and basically rights a new lease for them with the balance of your terms.

lindros2

you guys are extremely helpful. But BarryH is correct - AHFC doesn't transfer leases...

jjsC5

I hear all the time of dealers offering to "pay off your lease" if you buy a new car from them. The real deal is that they are only going to do it if they make enough profit on your new purchase to allow them to take the hit paying off your car. There is no such thing as letting you out of a lease early if you buy a new one. Somebodies got to pay!

Mike_TX

This is true, but it's the lamest option in the world. Why in God's green earth would you pay all the remaining payments, then walk away? I mean if there's, say, a year and a half left on the lease, why would anyone pay for that upcoming 18 month's use of the car, then give it to the dealer? Jeez.

What annoys me is that if you do this, they now have a car 18 months newer than they expected, and with only half the expected miles on it, so the actual value of the car is much more than the residual they originally based the lease on. So they get the 'gravy', which would be thousands of bucks. Say they set a residual of $13,500 at the end of a 3 year lease. You pay all the payments, then give it back to them 18 months early. At that point, maybe the car's worth $19,000. They have all your 3 years of payments, plus a car worth $5,500 more than it would have been at lease-end. Bandits! :sqntfawk: You've been screwed royally.

There oughta be a better way.

Mike

chlbkl

You're absolutely right. Logic tells someone if they have many months left, there's absolutely no reason to pay the remaining payments. Pretty much, once you sign the dotted line on the lease, the deal is sealed. Of course, you can turn the situation around if you can sell it for more than what your payoff is to someone, which is often not the case. Try to recover your loss.

:sqnteek:

One thing about leases, your payments is also based on the assumption of miles you'll be driving. As a side note, companies do not care what the vehicle is worth, they want to be paid, which is good in a sense, I'd like to be paid. The better way if you don't want to keep the car with that many months left, is to trade it or sell it privately. And, if you sell it privately, ask the leasing company if it includes sales tax.