A choice about funding a vehicle should be made separately to the vehicle itself. It is better to hand a detailed minibus specification to a finance provider and ask for figures based on your choices to make sure that the end product is based on your requirements, rather than a loose interpretation.
Engaging with Minibus Options to create that specification is a great starting point, but once you are ready to place an order, how will you fund the vehicle?
Leasing has become a catchall term to describe a financial arrangement other than an outright purchase. There are, in fact, a number of financial profiles that may be used to fund a vehicle, but the terminology used by different companies can lead to confusion. Regardless of the financial package, the basic principle is to pay to use a vehicle while spreading the cost. In some cases, like Contract Hire, it also means paying to ‘leverage’ some of the upkeep.
There are many variations of fi nancial packages available to consider when you want to do something other than buy the vehicle outright, upfront for cash.
As a professional, knowledgeable minibus supplier Minibus Options will be pleased to discuss which alternatives are going to suit you best.
Normally when people say leasing, they mean Contract Hire, that is a contract with maintenance. Contracts can be created that include all manner of helpful things –
servicing, maintenance, MOT’s, roadside assistance, tyres, batteries, exhaust
– for example.
A contract hire consists of paying a monthly premium to use a vehicle, to
have it serviced and maintained with no additional cost for the life of the
contract. It means that you can have a predictable cost for the lifetime of the
contract, at least for the vehicle itself. Insurance and fuel are notable and
costly exceptions to any contract hire.
Contract hire is often seen as the way to “hassle free” vehicle ownership,
effectively paying someone else to deal with the upkeep of the vehicle and
have them deal with the risk of having to pay for unforeseen non warrantable
repairs.
Whilst contract hire can remove some of the hassle of vehicle ownership
there are always going to be things you will need to deal with yourself.
Even if you have the most comprehensive maintenance package available
for the vehicle, you still retain overall responsibility for the safe operation
of your minibus which as well as making sure the vehicle is in a roadworthy
condition, includes ensuring drivers are trained properly and that passengers
have also received instructions on vehicle safety.
A third alternative to outright purchase and contract hire is hire purchase.
Hire Purchase is a straightforward, affordable route to ownership. This route
allows eventual ownership over a period of time having spread out the overall
cost of owning a vehicle. At the start of the agreement you pay a deposit on
your chosen minibus. Then, throughout the duration of your agreement, you
pay the agreed payments over the agreed term until the remainder of its value
is repaid. Once all payments are made, at the end of the term, ownership of
the vehicle passes to the hirer on payment of a document fee.
