Bentley business contract hire
Rent the car to your company. Hand it back at the end.
- If it is worth less
- The lender. The car was never yours.
- Own it at the end
- No
- Monthly cost
- Lowest
- Available to
- Limited companies only
Business contract hire is a lease to a limited company rather than a purchase. The company pays an initial rental, then a fixed monthly rental for an agreed term and an agreed annual mileage, and hands the car back at the end. It is car leasing in the ordinary sense of the word.
There is no final payment to negotiate and no exposure to what the used market does, because the company never owned the car. That is the appeal of leasing and it is also the whole of the objection to it: at the end of four years you have made forty eight payments and you have no asset, no equity and nothing to sell.
We quote rather than publish. A monthly rental depends on the term, the initial rental, the agreed mileage and what the lease company expects the car to be worth on return, and any figure printed before those four are known would be wrong for almost everyone reading it. For comparison, the same Continental GT at £200,000 on hire purchase over 48 months at an indicative nominal rate of 8.9 per cent costs £3,974 a month.
The four numbers that set the price
The initial rental, usually quoted as three, six, nine or twelve monthly rentals paid up front. The term, most often 24, 36 or 48 months. The annual mileage, commonly set between 5,000 and 15,000 miles on cars like these. And the value the lease company expects on return, which is the number you never see and which drives everything else. Raise the initial rental or lower the mileage and the monthly rental falls. Every lease works this way, whether it is a Bentley or a van.
Excess mileage and the return inspection
The annual mileage in the agreement is a contractual limit and not a target. Go past it and excess mileage is charged at a pence per mile rate set at the outset, applied across the whole term rather than year by year. On a lease written at 8,000 miles a year over 48 months the allowance is 32,000 miles, and a car returned at 40,000 is charged on 8,000. Returned cars are inspected against the fair wear and tear guide published by the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association, and on a car with this paint and this hide the charges are not small.
Who it does not suit
Anyone who wants to own the car, and anyone buying something likely to appreciate. Under a lease you cannot sell it at the end because it was never yours to sell. Limited runs and anything with a collector following should never be leased. Nor should a car you expect to keep beyond the term, because extending a lease is rarely cheaper than having bought it in the first place.
Tell us about the car
We come back with which agreements the car supports and what each one is likely to cost. If none of them work, that is the answer you get.