Equipment lease agreements

Justpracticing

I have recently begun managing an existing business that has two lease agreements (different finance co's) for the same equipment, these two agreements were sold to the business by the same equipment company, one in 20009 and one in 2011.
On speaking to the equipment supplier I am told that the directors of the businees ahad agreed to settle the first agreeement on the sale of the second. Not only does this not make sense, but there is nothing in writing, the directors deny it, band the business is paying double for the same equipment.
Is this legal? Any advice?

paddyrg

You could ask to see copies of the signed agreements or you will stop paying - see what shakes out. If they delay and can't provide paperwork, stop paying, see what happens? Without paperwork it would seem tough to prove that you should keep paying (and you can start a fresh lease with another company on formal terms, or you can just buy whatever it is and save a fortune)

Justpracticing

Thanks

Both agreements have been signed and appear to be in order...but why would anyone sign another agreement for the same equipment unless it had been agreed to settle the original?

ILW

paddyrg wrote: »

You could ask to see copies of the signed agreements or you will stop paying - see what shakes out. If they delay and can't provide paperwork, stop paying, see what happens? Without paperwork it would seem tough to prove that you should keep paying (and you can start a fresh lease with another company on formal terms, or you can just buy whatever it is and save a fortune)

Possibly all the businesses' lines of credit dry up.

paddyrg

Justpracticing wrote: »

Thanks

Both agreements have been signed and appear to be in order...but why would anyone sign another agreement for the same equipment unless it had been agreed to settle the original?

If the paperwork is all in order, and whoever signed the deals says it's legit...well I can only assume it's either a 'top-up' second contract for some reason, or someone did a bit of a shady one and is syphoning the benefit from the company through the vendor?

shedhead55

Are the equipment serial numbers quoted on the different lease agreements the same, and do they agree with the serial number on the actual equipment?

One possible scenario is that one agreement is is for the main piece of equipment and the other for an accessory or peripheral to that equipment. Another possible is that one agreement is a lease for the equipment itself and the other is a maintenance contract.

When I worked for a major equipment supplier both of these scenarios were commonplace and did on occasion cause confusion.

Buzby

A further commonplace initiative was to lease kit that (frankly) did not exist - it was bolted on to another. The benefits? The finance house gets paid, the 'salesman' gets his kick-back, and the firm who supposedly got th equipment, gets the cash.

As someone noted, it was a way to a loan at often better terms than a bank would provide. As to how you resolve it, if a Ltd company then if you stop paying, the first thing that happens is the kit is recovered - it will not matter that another firm has it listed on their agreement. They will then pursue the firm for the balance of the commitment that remains unpaid.

somethingcorporate

topincentives wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]Before you sign any kind of equipment leasing contract is to read everything in the deal. You need to read all of the details and make sure that you understand everything in the document because you do not want to be left out in the cold in case something goes wrong. As long as everything looks legit and you have had someone else look over the document as well, you should be fine with signing the lease.[/FONT]

Did you sign-up just to post this?

Did you read the OP? the leases were already signed by the previous directors.

fwor

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Did you sign-up just to post this?

They signed up so that search engine webcrawlers will find the web site address in their user profile.

The owners of the web site are probably paying to be told by "topincentives" that spamming forums is what SEO is all about, though they probably called it something like "brand placement" instead...