Car Leasing - Registered Keeper, whats legal?

Liam_Raven

Hi everyone,
I have been looking to lease a car recently, in my search for a good deal I came across Nationwide Vehicle contracts. They have a good trust pilot rating and seem a popular company, however I came across an issue.

On all other leasing company websites they stated that the registered owner of the vehicle would be the finance company and that you would be the registered keeper. Whilst nationwide vehicle contracts state that the registered owner and keeper of the vehicle would be the finance company.

Source: (cant post link sorry) Google: nationwide vehicle contracts insuring your vehicle

Normal:
Registered owner: Finance company
Registered keeper: Day-to-day user (you)

Nationwide Vehicle contracts:
Registered owner: Finance company
Registered keeper: Finance company

I then came across another leasing company that states, "If your car is not registered to you at the time you collect it, you will be committing a criminal offence and chances are that the person selling it to you has also committed a criminal offence by not giving you proper information."

"It is a criminal offence to keep and drive a car which is not registered to you at your address as the keeper. If you drive around in a car that has been registered to a company, or another third party, that is not otherwise related to the transaction then you could be prosecuted, fined and get a criminal record. This is because it is an offence under Section 43C of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994."

Source: drive the deal preregistered vehicles

I was thought there might just be a mistake on the nationwide vehicle contracts website, so i contacted them.

Dear Nationwide Vehicle contracts,
I was looking to lease a new car from your company when I noticed on your "insuring your leased vehicle" webpage the following statement:

"Who is the registered owner and keeper of the vehicle?

For business contract hire and personal contract hire agreements, the finance company is the registered owner and keeper of the vehicle."

You are telling customers that the vehicle's registered keeper will be the finance company which is in breach of Section 43C of the vehicle excise and registration act 1994.

Can you clarify your actual practice, will the registered keeper be the finance company or the person leasing the vehicle?

Thank you,
Liam.

They replied:

Dear Liam,

Thank you for your question. I apologise for the time it has taken to get back to you as I wanted to check your query with our funders who in turn have requested clarification from their own internal compliance managers plus the legal department of our industry body The British Leasing and Rental Association.

They have responded similarly.

In the case of all business and personal contract hire agreements both the registered owner and keeper of the vehicle will be the funder, through whom the agreement is arranged. With contract hire/personal contract hire the funder will automatically renew the road fund licence through the term of the agreement, as such they are effectively the “registered keeper” - The registered keeper database held by the DVLA is NOT a register of owners.

Whilst the hirer has day to day control of the vehicle the funder remains the ultimate financial owner of the vehicle as the user is effectively hiring the vehicle and ownership does not pass to them at the end of the contract.

Any parking/speeding fines or other traffic violations will normally be reported via the funder who will then pass these onto the user.

I hope this clarifies the situation for you. At Nationwide Vehicle Contracts we only offer either business or personal contract hire products - We arrange in the region of 15,000 every year through large funders such as LEX Autolease (Lloyds Bank) Hitachi capital, ALD (Societe Generale) ARVAL (Bank National de Paris) Network (Leaseplan) and Santander. They all follow similar rules and in their own right operate 100s of thousands of vehicles on these type of contracts therefore we are confident that their arrangements are correct and our customers have not been challenged since we started our business over 14 years ago.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to send them to me.

Best regards

Keith

Can anyone clear this issue up for me, what is the actual legislation?

Thanks, Liam.

waamo

Drive the deal are talking utter nonsense. According to them I can't borrow a mates car for a couple of days.

laidbackgjr

I think Drive the Deal are wrong - reading http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/section/43C I can't see anywhere it says that the user must be the registered keeper.

What it does says is “keeper”, in relation to a vehicle, means the person by whom it is kept at the material time;

And kept does not mean physically it means legally kept and responsible for the vehicle.

Rover_Driver

Some vehicles are supplied to dealers at discount to be sold as pre-registered with the condition that the vehicle is registered to the dealer for a fixed period, for example 6 months, before selling it as 'pre-registered'.
Dealers have been known to sell the vehicle before the agreed discount period, keeping it registered to themselves for the discount period and not the new owner - That could be the offence of a vehicle being incorrectly registered as the dealer has no further interest or any responsibility in respect of the vehicle.

With leasing companies, they can be the owner and the person keeping the vehicle can be the registered keeper, or the leasing company can be both owner and registered keeper, depending on the circumstances.In that case the vehicle would be correctly registered

There is no 'Registered Owner'. There would the 'owner', and the 'Registered Keeper'

bod1467

I have a company car leased from ALD. The owner and registered keeper (per V5C and DVLA records) is ALD. I am the hirer of the vehicle (essentially).

In such a situation, if you're stopped by El Plod and they do a PNC check, in all likelihood they'll get 2 names come back ... ALD's and mine. (I have been stopped before, and they didn't question the validity of myself having the vehicle).

Liam_Raven

Thank you all for your comments, I'm getting the sense that Nationwide Vehicle contracts are following a common practice which is legal. Thanks everyone!

Car_54

bod1467 wrote: »

I have a company car leased from ALD. The owner and registered keeper (per V5C and DVLA records) is ALD. I am the hirer of the vehicle (essentially).

In such a situation, if you're stopped by El Plod and they do a PNC check, in all likelihood they'll get 2 names come back ... ALD's and mine. (I have been stopped before, and they didn't question the validity of myself having the vehicle).

Plod would have ALD's name as the RK: that's what's on the DVLA database. Why would they have yours?

Fat_Walt

Car_54 wrote: »

Plod would have ALD's name as the RK: that's what's on the DVLA database. Why would they have yours?

Probably from the insurance database.

Rover_Driver

Car_54 wrote: »

Plod would have ALD's name as the RK: that's what's on the DVLA database. Why would they have yours?

In some circumstances it can be the hirer's name, c/o the leasing company details.

bod1467

Rover_Driver wrote: »

In some circumstances it can be the hirer's name, c/o the leasing company details.

This sounds like a probable reason, although I cannot say for certain it applies in my case.

I'm not the only one at work with a company car who has been stopped before. In both other cases I'm aware of the same outcome was observed ... Plod had no qualms about who was driving the vehicles.

Fat_Walt

bod1467 wrote: »

This.

I'm not the only one at work with a company car who has been stopped before. In both other cases I'm aware of the same outcome was observed ... Plod had no qualms about who was driving the vehicles.

And why should they?