Business Contract Hire

[ni4abargain]

I need some advice on business contract hire please. My husband set up his own company selling mobile accessories a couple of months ago and we really need a bigger car for the goods and carrying the kids around.

Does anyone know how long you need to be trading before you can apply for business contract hire please?

Any other advice on contract hire would be most welcome as I know diddly squat about it.

Thanks in advance

[piggeh]

Not sure how long you need to be trading, I would imagine its down to individual contract hire companies.

However, as the business hasnt been going long, maybe a better option would be to look at a mini lease product. These are rentals from 28 days to a year, and are charged at much lower rates than daily rental. They're slightly higher than contract hire, but you wont tie yourself into a 3 or 4 year contract so could prove to be a better option. Have a look at the rates and weigh up the benefits. Enterprise offer it, as do the normal leasing firms like Masterlease, IGN, etc.

When looking at contract hire look at:

1)payment profile - beware of those with 3 payments up front (ie a 3+47 profile as opposed to a 1+47, for a 4 year contract), etc, as it makes it seem cheaper than it really is.

2)Whether to go for maintained or non maintained (and whether stuff such as overseas breakdown, uk breakdown, etc, is included).

3)Contract mileage - check excess rates and also whether you can realign the contract for free during the contract term (ie if you sign up on a 10k per annum hire deal, and find yourself doing 15k, that you can change the contract to a 15k per annum hire without any extra charge aside from change in contract rate). Important as excess charges can be hundreds or thousands of pounds.

Also its worth asking local dealers if they will give you an additional discount on a vehicle if you nominate them as the supplier. Sometimes you can get an extra discount that feeds through to the contract rental rate this way, although not sure if it will work for an individual order, but worth a go.

[ioscorpio]

Business contract hire is only useful to him if he is VAT registered, otherwise as he has only just gone self employed he might as well have a personal contract hire or a personal finance lease.

[ni4abargain]

Wow, thank you so much piggeh. I'll have a good look into what you've suggested. Hubby's going to register for VAT, so business option seems more favorable.

Many thanks once again.:T