Havas

Ok here is the issue,

I have a BMW 1 series which I have given to my lady seeing as I just paid for my S2000 and it's due next Wednesday. But today I found a very sexy Z3 with only 13K on it and in perfect condition the last owner hardly used it so it spent most of it's life in the garage. Z3 with M kit and all the options.


Now here is the issue, I want to get that for the wife instead of the 1 Series as she loves the Z3 but the BMW I have was a 2 year Hire purchase lease. Now the first year on the lease expires in June so I wanted to know if it's true that I can cancel my agreement on the BMW after half has been paid? In this case 1 year out of the 2 complete.

The original plan was to pay off the BMW and keep it but the Z3 will cost less than what I have left to pay on the 1 series and it's a very nice car.

Now if the company tell me I can not cancel the agreement is there anyway around this? Any of you lawyers able to help me out with this one? I want to put a deposit down on the BMW on Monday but I need to confirm that I can cancel the BMW contract first otherwise I'll be stuck with 3 cars.

Cheers

Lurking Lawyer

From memory, the position is that you can just hand the car back and bring the agreement to an end if more then half of the credit balance has been paid back. So, assuming it was 24 monthly payments, I'd guess that means you can do so at any time after the 12th has been made.

Havas

Cool I hope your right I'd def love to have the Z3 sitting next to my sexy S2000

aldfort

My better half who's in fleet management and leasing tells me that depending on the mileage and other things there might be some sort of early return penalty. She has this regularly when she gives cars back. Also be very careful that the car is clean and tidy and get a condition sheet signed when you return it. It's not unusual for the supplier to make charges for cleaning and correction of defects after you return the car. (Same precautions as when returning a hire car is what I'm talking about.) The asumption with these 24 month + balloon payment schemes is that you'll just hop into another new BMW after 24 months with a higher monthly repayment. So they won't be mega happy to have the car back.

Nick Graves

There's either HP

Lease purchase (usually balloon)

Or contract hire.

Not clear which you mean.

It also depends if the interest is front-loaded on HP - You could be buttf ucked with -ve equity early on.

Or some are rear-loaded, where you find you've got -ve equity at the end.

Have you got gap insurance?

Roadkill

Just make sure that when they are parked side-by-side, the S2000 is positioned slightly ahead of the Z3.

Busamav

They will also be able to offer you a settlement figure to end the cotract .

Then you just need to see what the 1 series ( snigger) is worth and hopefully it will cover the balance , if not you will have to take the spanking and hope you have learnt a lesson .

Good luck

Havas

If it's not a big spanking I'll gladly get rid of the oner in favor of the Z3. In the long term this will cost me less.

Reason being that the Z3 will cost me a mere

alex.stanley

I'm going through this at the moment with my 3-series and looking at 'Voluntary Termination'.

Are you with BMW Finance?

Anyway, the situation is as follows: provided you have borrowed less than 25k then you are able hand the car back at any time once you have repaid half the amount borrowed.

This is within your rights and completely above board.

However, I've just got the paperwork through about VT'ing mine and it looks like they will pro-rata the mileage and then charge you if you are already over it - so if you said you would do 20k each year for the two years and you've done 30k in the first year you will get a bill for the excess miles - mine's 9.9p per mile.

Also, the condition of the car is paramount. Even slightly scuffed wheels are likely to get a charge - I've picked up a whopping great scratch on the boot and somebody (*cough*Rebecca*cough*) has managed to kill all four alloys so I know I'm going to get stiffed on that. I'm actually looking at getting a Chipsaway-type company to repair the alloys and have a look at the scratch before I go through with the last bit of the VT because I have a feeling that when they do repairs they will be charging a premium rate to do them, so I'm going to do them before I hand the car back.

You could just get a settlement figure for the finance and pay it off that way...?

Havas

Mine is in perfect condition. I did some work behind the door cads to fit new speakers in but I'm going to leave those as they are. They look factory and I didn't replace the grill so theres no visible damage there.

I have to put back the original head unit and plug all the speakers into it the way it was.

Apart from that It will be about 2K miles over by the time I've paid half so I don't mind settling the excess mileage. I just hope thats all it comes down to.