Advice needed on potentially getting out of lease

I did. I didn’t go ahead with their FaceTime appraisal because I asked the guy who contacted me if their preliminary estimate was conservative and he said that it would be the max they’d do assuming the car was perfect. It is, but that number is still $800 less than VROOM. Carvana is $1000 under that, and KBB is like another $1300 under that. So, big range. I’m debating if I want to deal with the hassle (and risk) of going to CarMax during COVID.

Ok, so VROOM finally came through with the documents and the buyout is lower than I was expecting. I did just make this month’s payment, but they’re quoting my negative equity at only $187.16. The documentation shows that they received the buyout figure through “DEALERTRACK”. If this number is accurate, it’s a no-brainer.

I’m a bit concerned because the documentation states that I’m on the hook if the buyout ends up being higher. I think I need to try to find my original paperwork and try to see how they got to that number. I added up my residual plus remaining payments, but I guess that if I pay it off early there is some tax and finance charges in that monthly payment that I no longer owe and that may account for the discrepancy.

Your buy out should be more like RV + the remaining depreciation portion of the payments. Rent charge isn’t due on payments that don’t occur.

Yup. That got me closest but it’s still off. These were the numbers I had from when I put together the deal that I eventually presented to the dealer. I’m not sure how the actual numbers could differ in a meaningful way though as the residual is dead on and my payment is off by a penny. I’ll still try to find everything I got from them, though.

Cap Cost $22,100.00
Residual $16,980.75
Money Factor $0.00
Term $36.00
Monthly Principal $142.20
Monthly Finance Charge $19.93
Monthly Tax (6.35%) $10.30
Monthly Total $172.43
Remaining Months 20
Calculated Buyout $19,824.78
Quoted Buyout $20,148.16

Does CT tax monthly or is it an upfront payment that’s amortized monthly into the payment?

It’s possible that their structure for calculating has things like the acquisition fee paid off first rather than amortized. Some companies (Honda is notorious for this) include the disposition fee in the buy out if it’s going to a third party. There may be something like that going on.

CT has a monthly sales/use tax but a separate property tax which may be billed/remitted by the lessor AFAIK.

It’s monthly for the state sales tax. You pay it on the monthly payment, finance charge included, for a lease. When you buy a car instead of leasing you pay it upfront on the purchase price.

Then we have local property tax that’s billed yearly to the owner. This is my first time leasing, but from what I’ve been told and per my lease agreement, the town will send the bill to the leasing company, they’ll pay it, and then they’ll bill me. This hasn’t happened yet, though, and that’s surprising because the first one should’ve been due on Jan 1.