Can You Swap a Lease Car in the UK with Another Person?

When it comes to having a car many people in the UK wonder if they can transfer that lease over to another person. This can be a really confusing process, especially because each case is dealt with on an individual basis. With our guide on how to swap a lease UK car hirers will have more clarity on how to go through this process.

Transferring a Car Lease Contract

Transferring a car lease is often referred to as a transfer of contract. This is when you take the personal contract or contract hire from one person and transfer it to another. When you transfer the car lease over to another person, the agreement you set up in terms of monthly payments and the mileage allowance will remain the same. Both you and the other party will have to sign an agreement to state that this is true.

Why Would I Need to Swap a Lease With Another Person?

There could be any number of reasons why you want to transfer the lease of your car over to another person. It could be that your circumstances have changed such as a change in job or a new baby coming into your household. Anything could mean that you want to get out of a lease car contract a bit earlier. Being able to transfer the lease of your car gives you that option to get out of the payments early without having to go through a termination. The registered keeper receiving the car continues to pay for it and will get a new vehicle without having to put down a deposit or pay any of the upfront costs.

What Are The Criteria for Transferring a Lease?

There are, of course, several pieces of criteria you will have to meet in order to be able to transfer your car lease in the UK.

• To transfer a lease you must have an original agreement of either a Personal Contract Hire or a Contract Hire in place.
• The person you want to transfer the lease to has to have a credit check with it being approved by the person providing the finance.
• You can only have transferred the lease of the vehicle once throughout the duration of your contract.
• The fee of £500 will need to be paid before the lease can be transferred to another person.
• The car itself has to have more than a year left on the contract in order to transfer the lease.
• If you have a Personal Contract Hire plan, you can only transfer the lease when the remaining amount of rental to be paid is over £1500.

Another big part of transferring a lease is that it will only be able to be done between a private individual and a company, or vice versa. If you want to transfer between two limited companies, this enters you into a process called Novation which is different.

Can Anyone Leasing a Car Transfer the Contract?

Not all funders will allow you to transfer the lease of the car. It is completely up to the finance provider and won’t form any part of your contract. There are a number of reasons a finance company won’t transfer the lease to another person which are:

• There are no credit checks been passed for the agreement.
• The vehicle lease has been transferred once before.
• The current lease account is in arrears, has defaulted or has become insolvent.
• The vehicle has had an extension on its lease period.
• The vehicle has less than a year before the contract runs out.

How Much Will a Car Lease Transfer Cost?

It really depends on the lease company you’re using and whether they allow it in the first place. If you’re using someone like Nationwide Vehicle Contracts you’ll have to pay around £500 fee to be able to transfer the lease. This payment makes up two parts of the process. £250 of that money is paid to the lender as administration fees and the other half of the money goes to the  to process the agreement for you.

You can pay this fee using a debit or credit card, or by using a BACs transfer payment. It’s really easy and once this fee has been paid, you should be all good to go on transferring that lease!

Other companies will have different rules so it’s always best to check the terms and conditions of your agreement in the first place.