Frustrating Lease Transfer with Ford Credit

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Wanted to share my experience trying to do a lease transfer, hopefully this helps anyone else out that might be facing this issue.

I have a 2023 Mach E GT that I am looking to transfer. I ended up finding a buyer on swapalease and tried to get the process going.

With Ford, the first step is calling them to initiate a transfer. They state that you will need to fill out some digital paperwork to initiate a credit application for the buyer, which should be delivered in 1-2 business days. Which sounds easy enough, however…

I had to call and restart this process three times since they messed up the digital paperwork repeatedly. So this initial kickoff took over a week for me.

Once I got that submitted, it took roughly another week for my buyer to get the credit application. He filled it out promptly and got it back to Ford. Ford says it takes 1 to 2 weeks to complete the credit review, which is a bit silly but it is what it is.

My buyer got contacted by Ford about 1.5 weeks later, apparently something was not right in his credit application from a documentation standpoint. He addressed the issue and resubmitted. We then had to both call Ford repeatedly to see where the credit application stood, and it took a full extra 2 weeks to get a credit decision.

Now to the fun part, the lease transfer was denied by Ford due to a credit decision. My buyer has close to 800 credit, great credit history, low debt to income ratio. However Ford will not tell either of us the reason for denying the credit, and will only tell that through a physical letter that will be sent within 30 days.

We believe it is probably something related to the buyer having 2 addresses. So we both called Ford to try and rectify this, asking if we could appeal the decision or get some more info about the denial. We were offered no help, and told we would need to reapply. They also noted that the buyer would be automatically rejected if we reapplied unless he brought a cosigner along.

I reached out to the swapalease folks to see if they had any insight. They said they thought Ford requires the buyer to have equal or better credit as the current owner (at the time of the original lease inception), but even then I’m not sure I had that good of credit at the time. I’m also not sure if that idea is valid, I’ve not come across that anywhere else.

So I’m still stuck with my Mach E after about 2 months of trying to work this lease transfer out. The buyer still doesn’t have the letter explaining why credit was denied. I’ve made the decision to pursue other options and move on from that buyer, but this process has truly been painful.

Hope this helps anyone else if they’re facing similar issues. Not sure if anyone has any experiences with a Ford transfer that might help me out here. I am going to try to transfer to a different buyer next, fingers crossed it works.

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That’s how the FCRA works, as has been discussed here many times. It sounds like your transferee doesn’t have any auto loan/lease history.

Whatever the reason, Ford said no. You need to find someone new if you want to transfer that lease. Good luck!

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Either that or the buyer is not being forthcoming about something else, but with everything he told me it should have been an easy approval.

Fingers crossed my next buyer works out, if I have to sell instead of transfer it’s going to be a huge loss

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But this person would almost surely approved for the loan initially so I’ve never really understood why it seems transfers are somehow more stringent from a credit standpoint than just simply leasing the car new would be

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How do you know that?

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The fact they have an 800 credit score, unless their income is like 50k I doubt it would be a problem on a 60k car.

I think it’s pretty clear that in general transfers seem to have far more strict credit standards than the initial transaction , for whatever strange and likely misguided reasons

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I’m about to start this process as well, so hopefully mine goes more smoothly! Good luck.

I tried to get documents via DigiSign, but was told that wasn’t possible for my lease. I talked to two different reps and they both said that, so I guess it might be something with the state I live in. Buyer is going to fax in the credit application.

Also I sure hope Swapalease was making up the whole “has to have equal or better credit than the original lessee” part because the Ford dealership told me I came in at 850 when I leased… so maybe I’m stuck with this thing.

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Best of luck man! If the equal or better credit part is true I’m also in a bad situation. I’m trying again with a different buyer that has a co-applicant, hoping that helps get this done. Otherwise I’ll have to sell and eat the big loss, which sucks cuz the lease is really good value and someone could really benefit from taking it.

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I just completed stage 2 with my Ford lease transfer; credit was approved and it’s not as good as mine.

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Super helpful, thank you! Do you know roughly how far apart your credit is from the applicant? And was it only a single applicant?

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Single applicant, probably 50 point difference.

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Thank you so much, this is super helpful.

Out of curiosity, how long has it taken you to get to this point? It’s been painfully slow with Ford for me

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I requested the transfer 7/28.
Stage 1 completed 7/30.
Stage 2 credit approval completed 8/4.
Stage 3 contracts signed by both parties 8/6.

Just waiting for Ford’s signature. Everything has been done either online or with docusign.

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Damn, PFS must be running Ford Credit.

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Question for the others going through a transfer as the seller, is there anything explicit I have to do in order to not remain liable for the lease post transfer? Swapalease says something vague about that maybe being a thing with Ford, but as usual I can’t find many details and the phone people aren’t the most helpful.

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Oh boy, fun update that definitely matches the “Frustrating Lease Transfer” title.

Buyer faxed in their credit approval Monday afternoon, hadn’t heard anything but wasn’t super surprised by that. Called last night to try to confirm it had been received, told the credit division was closed and I should call back tomorrow, sure, fine.

Called this morning, rep calls up the credit division, comes back and says they haven’t received a fax. Because Ford put the wrong fax number on the letter they sent to my Account portal. I get a new, supposedly correct Fax # from them.

However I decide to ask again (for the 4th time now with different reps) if I can instead have them send it via email/DocuSign to my buyer, and I’m now told yes! TBD on if that actually got sent to them, as I haven’t heard back yet, but man. What a clown show over there.

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Yeah that’s a pretty good representation of my experience. It’s like you have to find the one rep that knows how this works, otherwise you’re screwed

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Yep. Ford sucks and they know it.
The poor people on the phone are super sweet, especially because I imagine they get yelled at constantly.

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Yeah, I’ve been very calm and understanding on the phone because I’ve done that work before and know how shitty it is lol. Just silently angered afterwards.

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Question for you because I’ve now gotten a variety of different answers on this, but the last guy seemed to know what the deal was and he told me that I can’t actually have the initial credit application done via DocuSign because I’m going to be removed from the lease. Did you have to upload everything via the portal for that step?