Buying a lease car

Joe902000

I ordered a rather nice lease car on a three year contract @ 10kpa. Due to covid its done less than 10k total. 
I like the car, the contract always said it can't be bought. The company must be doing well someone in redhill surrey just bought it. 
Do i have any rights of / or first refusal to buy this car?  

MovingForwards

Joe902000 said:

I ordered a rather nice lease car on a three year contract @ 10kpa. Due to covid its done less than 10k total. 
I like the car, the contract always said it can't be bought. The company must be doing well someone in redhill surrey just bought it. 
Do i have any rights of / or first refusal to buy this car?  

Better off asking
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/motoring

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've moved this over to the Motoring board

BOWFER

You don't have any 'right' to buy it, but I've bought several lease cars at the end of the term.
Just have to ask them.

Grumpy_chap

Joe902000 said:

 The company must be doing well someone in redhill surrey just bought it. 
Do i have any rights of / or first refusal to buy this car?  

Do you mean that someone bought the lease company or bought the car?  If someone already bought the car, then that ship has sailed.

The lease company will sell the car to someone, so if no-one else has bought the car, you can ask and potentially agree a price.

Sometimes the lease company cannot sell individual vehicles if they did a fleet-wide disposal agreement.

Sandtree

Joe902000 said:

Do i have any rights of / or first refusal to buy this car?  

The VAT treatment of contracts of sales is very different to a contract of service... generally speaking a lease (a service) results in lower VAT being paid. As such most lease companies do not allow the sale of the vehicle to the leasee in case HMRC therefore decides to reconsider the contract as one of sale from the outset and therefore pursue the additional VAT.

So, no automatic right to buy the car from the finance company. Some will allow it but most dont... though a friend can buy it and then you buy it from the friend (most won't allow close family for the same reason). 

If you are talking about buying it from the dealership that bought it from the finance company then equally no, you are just another punter interested in their newly acquired stock.