Lending out my lease car: what about that?

03 augustus 2021

If you are considering leasing your company car, you will undoubtedly have questions about financial leasing , but also about the maintenance and use of your future lease car. Maybe you would like to lend your brand new car to a good friend, for example. But, are you allowed to lend a lease car to someone else or are you breaking the rules? Below you can read how it works.

Anyone with a valid driver's license

To give you a direct answer to the question of whether you can lend out a lease car: yes, you can. You have entered into a lease contract whereby you can drive the car, but in fact anyone with a valid driver's license can drive the lease car. Fortunately, the car is also insured at that time. It is important to make good agreements with the person you lend the car to. You are and remain responsible for the car, regardless of whether you let someone else drive your lease car. If the driver has an accident, drives too fast or causes damage, you're on the hook. You have to solve it in this case.

But, there are exceptions

There are exceptions regarding lending out the lease car. For example, some leasing companies impose additional requirements, for example that the driver must be at least 21 years old and must have held a valid driver's license for at least two years. You can check in the conditions whether this is also the case with your leasing company. Moreover, you may never lend out the lease car for 'special events'. An example of such a special event is lending a lease car for someone else's company. Finally, you should also check whether the person you are going to lend the car to does not have any outstanding debts with the tax authorities. If the person is checked, your car may be taken off the road due to outstanding claims.

Tip: think about the mileage

It is not only important to think about who you lend the car to, but you should also consider how many kilometers that person wants to drive. Depending on the lease contract, you are only allowed to drive a maximum number of kilometers. Of course, you don't want this number to be exceeded while you're not even driving the car. Moreover, you have to pay extra for this. So first ask the person how many kilometers he or she plans to travel before you lend out the lease car. If you want to lease your future company car via financial lease, unlike operational/private lease , you are not limited to a maximum number of kilometers you can drive per year.

You must take this further into account

If you feel comfortable lending your lease car to someone, it is important to take the following into account:

• First check the lease agreement you have concluded to see whether you are allowed to lend out the lease car at all. You can usually find this in the additional terms and conditions of the leasing company. You can also find here whether there are additional rules regarding lending. If you cannot find any information about this, you can always call the company;
• Make good agreements with the person to whom you will lend the car. Consider, among other things, the advance and reimbursement of any damage, petrol costs and parking costs;
• If you regularly lend your lease car to others and charge a fee for this, the question is whether the leasing company is allowed to do this. Not every company agrees with this. You can also find this in the conditions.