Help with breaking car lease

[ChisJo]

I need some help....I have been leasing a car for 1 year. I absolutely love my car but my financial situation has changed (going through a separation) and I can no longer afford my car on my salary alone. I have been trying to do research about how to break a lease, but all I keep finding is different websites that will help you. Has anyone had to go through this? If so, should I be using a company to help me break my lease? How do I sell my lease to someone else? Should I sell my lease to someone else? I'm so confused. At the time, the lease seemed like such a good idea, but now that I'm going through this whole separation from my husband, I'm frustrated and overwhelmed with everything. I can't get approved for a mortgage on my own until I sell this car due to the monthly payments so I need to sell it sooner rather than later....thanks in advance!

 

[Susan2771]

I don't have any advice about how to handle your car lease, but I wanted to post that I'm really sorry to read about your seperation. I hope everything works out for you and best of luck with the lease and everything else.

 

[minnie56]

My suggestion would be to call the salesperson or dealership where you purchased if that was how you leased the vehicle? They would be familiar with the terms of your particular lease.

Hope the road ahead gets only better for you..

 

[Disney-Chick]

I work with a lady who had someone take over the lease for her car. I think you can just post that you are looking at having your lease taken over then you would deal with it the way you would selling a car. I would talk to the dealship maybe they can help and talk to Motor Vehicle as well to see how that would work.

I am sorry to hear about your seperation and I really hope all works out. I will speak to my co-worker when I see her and find out more details.

Good luck.

 

[MikeyNS]

Try leasebusters.ca .. there may be someone out there willing to take over your lease.
Sorry to hear about your situation.

 

[minnie56]

Leasebusters is an option..there is a fee...but worth looking at.

 

[bankr63]

If you need out, and it sounds like you do (a roof overhead outweights 4 expensive wheels on the road), then you may have to face some cold facts; it is going to cost you a bit to get out of the agreement.

At one year into your lease you are most certainly "upside down" on the costs right now (unless you put down a large down payment). That means that if the lease is broken and the vehicle returned to the lessor, the car will be worth less than what you owe on it. This is a fact based on how cars depreciate more rapidly at the start of ownership. Returning the car is probably not your best option, but worth discussing with the leasing company.

If you are looking for a lease takeover, you still may need to give up a bit of cash; if you made a downpayment at the beginning of the lease, that cash may be gone. If you did a "zero down" lease, you may need to sweeten the pot for the person taking over. Again, this is about value. You are trying to get someone to takeover the lease on what is now a used vehicle. Why would they want your lease when they can get the same terms on a brand new vehicle? You need to be willing to make it worthwhile.

You can try getting a lease takeover privately and locally; listing in the paper for instance, but there are risks and your market is small. Not good if you are in a rush. As the PP's pointed out leasebusters.ca gives you professional advice (they've been around for at least 15 years that I know of) and a national market.

If you are concerned about them being legitimate, go to the General Motors Canada website. There you will see that GM offers people up to $1000 to list their cars on leasebusters if they buy a new one from GM. That's a pretty serious endorsement of the site's legitimacy.

 

[ChisJo]

If you need out, and it sounds like you do (a roof overhead outweights 4 expensive wheels on the road), then you may have to face some cold facts; it is going to cost you a bit to get out of the agreement.

At one year into your lease you are most certainly "upside down" on the costs right now (unless you put down a large down payment). That means that if the lease is broken and the vehicle returned to the lessor, the car will be worth less than what you owe on it. This is a fact based on how cars depreciate more rapidly at the start of ownership. Returning the car is probably not your best option, but worth discussing with the leasing company.

If you are looking for a lease takeover, you still may need to give up a bit of cash; if you made a downpayment at the beginning of the lease, that cash may be gone. If you did a "zero down" lease, you may need to sweeten the pot for the person taking over. Again, this is about value. You are trying to get someone to takeover the lease on what is now a used vehicle. Why would they want your lease when they can get the same terms on a brand new vehicle? You need to be willing to make it worthwhile.

You can try getting a lease takeover privately and locally; listing in the paper for instance, but there are risks and your market is small. Not good if you are in a rush. As the PP's pointed out leasebusters.ca gives you professional advice (they've been around for at least 15 years that I know of) and a national market.

If you are concerned about them being legitimate, go to the General Motors Canada website. There you will see that GM offers people up to $1000 to list their cars on leasebusters if they buy a new one from GM. That's a pretty serious endorsement of the site's legitimacy.

I actually had a pretty big down payment (with trade in and down payment), but honestly, even if I took a hit, I would be ok. I really am at the point of just needing to get rid of the car so that I can move on. The last couple of years have been difficult, and this car payment is just making it even more difficult. I just want to get rid of this and move on. As much as I love my car (I really do - its a great car), I have to be realistic. Luckily, I make good money and am able to make it right now even with the car payment, but to get into a condo/house with my own mortgage close to work or public transportation, in a safe area for a single lady, in a reliable home, and I want to own (I have the down payment from my husband buying me out of the mortgage), I need to get rid of the car and have a less luxury vehicle. It doesn't even pain me to say that - again, as much as I love my car, it is just only a car.

thanks for the advice...I'm going to look into leasebusters, and then if that doesn't pan out, I'll talk to my dealership. The problem with talking to the dealership is that my husband is friends with everyone there....so that my be awkward. I hope that things work out fine. To everyone who has had to go through this, I now feel your pain. This is awful...but I know I'll be ok.

 

[bankr63]

I actually had a pretty big down payment (with trade in and down payment), but honestly, even if I took a hit, I would be ok. I really am at the point of just needing to get rid of the car so that I can move on. The last couple of years have been difficult, and this car payment is just making it even more difficult. I just want to get rid of this and move on. As much as I love my car (I really do - its a great car), I have to be realistic. Luckily, I make good money and am able to make it right now even with the car payment, but to get into a condo/house with my own mortgage close to work or public transportation, in a safe area for a single lady, in a reliable home, and I want to own (I have the down payment from my husband buying me out of the mortgage), I need to get rid of the car and have a less luxury vehicle. It doesn't even pain me to say that - again, as much as I love my car, it is just only a car.

thanks for the advice...I'm going to look into leasebusters, and then if that doesn't pan out, I'll talk to my dealership. The problem with talking to the dealership is that my husband is friends with everyone there....so that my be awkward. I hope that things work out fine. To everyone who has had to go through this, I now feel your pain. This is awful...but I know I'll be ok.

If you had a BIG downpayment, you may want to ask for some back with your lease takeover. You will probably have a lower lease cost than any comparable vehicles listed - that can make your vehicle pretty attractive then. Spend a bit of time on the site looking at other vehicles in your class. That should give you a pretty good idea of what a competitive price would be for your vehicle.

I feel for you on the mortgage. I went through a similar situation during separation many years back when the bank, after initially saying yes to a mortgage, started laying on more and more conditions. At the end of the day I jumped through all their hoops and got the house, but it made for a very stressful situation. Everyone ended up happy, I got a great house just a few km away from the "other" house, and life slowly returned to a new level of normal. Good luck to you ChisJo, you sound like you'll be fine at the end of day!

 

[seashoreCM]

I need some help....I have been leasing a car for 1 year. I absolutely love my car but my financial situation has changed (going through a separation) and I can no longer afford my car on my salary alone. I have been trying to do research about how to break a lease, but all I keep finding is different websites that will help you. Has anyone had to go through this? If so, should I be using a company to help me break my lease? How do I sell my lease to someone else? Should I sell my lease to someone else? I'm so confused. At the time, the lease seemed like such a good idea, but now that I'm going through this whole separation from my husband, I'm frustrated and overwhelmed with everything. I can't get approved for a mortgage on my own until I sell this car due to the monthly payments so I need to sell it sooner rather than later....thanks in advance!

Do not simply take the car and the car keys to the dealer and leave them there.

Can you afford the car if you forgot about getting a mortgage, and rented in a neighborhood you liked for a few years?

The end result is totally up to your car dealer and/or the finance company behind the dealer.

One thing you might explore is converting the lease into a purchase. This way you would not have to worry about getting another car and pay GST and PST* and another set of car payments when the lease ends. Now you do need to do the math to be sure this is better than getting rid of the car.

* Sales tax for you U.S. eavesdroppers.