How to Cancel a Car Lease Without Getting a Penalty
Need to break your car lease early? Worried about high penalties and fees? Relax. You can transfer your car lease and not incur penalties. There's a market for short-term leases and many consumers prefer to avoid car dealers. Plus, a new lessee gets the benefit of all of your past payments. The biggest benefit of transferring your car lease is that there is no impact to your credit score.
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Instructions
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Determine if your lease agreement allows lease transfers or assumptions. If your agreement prohibits a lease transfer, then canceling alone will lead to significant out-of-pocket expenses.
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Find a car lease transfer assistance company. There are several reputable firms that can assist you in finding a new prospective lessee. These firms have a listing fee to be included in their database. In many cases, lease transfer assistance companies can confirm if your lease is eligible for assumption.
To successfully navigate a lease transfer assistance website, remember that you are the "seller" and the new potential lessee is the "buyer." -
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Consider related fees. While lease transfers don't incur penalties for the seller, there are some related fees. You will have to pay the lease transfer company a listing fee and the leasing company a fee for processing the application of the new prospective lessee. In all, a seller should expect to pay about $200 in fees. This is well below the cost of buying out the lease or rolling your current lease into a new lease purchase.
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Tips & Warnings
You might only be able to obtain a lease transfer for a portion of your remaning obligation, perhaps two out of three remaining years. If this happens, you will need to initiate the lease transfer process again to cover the final year of the lease.
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- Photo Credit car on Russian rubles image by Irina Kodentseva from Fotolia.com
