Hi LH,
Unique situation - I currently lease an 2016 Acura ILX with 4 months left and was recently informed that I will be activated to active duty by the end of April for six months. Is there a way I could cancel the lease without it having a negative impact on my credit score?
Thank you!
Short answer is ‘probably’ based on the info provided. SCRA does allow for relief in certain situations, likely yours. Check with Acura financial and they should be able to tell you what you need to provide.
Some manufacturers allow termination without penalty. I would try to contact Financial Services and see if they would be willing to do so.
PS: Thank you for your service 
Military clause will work and not cause you harm. Research the clause to ensure you fall withing the parameters. After that call the financial institution you are leasing or buying and they will walk you through the process. My wife’s friend and her husband got orders to Guam. They where leasing two cars. Once he got his orders he called Toyota of Northern America and they explained what he had to do to cut the lease short. Once they decided to drop off they did with no penalties. If the Tacoma had lower miles I would have considered taking over.
Thank you for the replies! I will contact Acura Financial first thing Monday.
Update: I called Acura Financial and they denied my request
My orders came in and I am going to be in active duty status for 140 days (in the US) apparently it is required that you go into active duty for 180 days for the bank to terminate the lease early.
I have 4-months left on my lease and it is eligible for a 3-month pull ahead from Acura, I am also leaving in the 30th. Any thoughts on what my options are?
That is unfortunate. Can you park it and, pay the remaining payments on it, and then have a friend or family member turn it in for you?
Yea, might have to do just that and have Acura just perform the inspection early… I don’t feel like getting into another lease financial responsibility in a hurry.
The law says you have to be deployed or PCS for over 180 days and it has to be outside of the continental US so they are legally allowed to deny you. However if you use pull ahead you would have to re-lease a new vehicle with them which would mean you have to make the payments over your deployment anyways. I have no idea what the terms of your lease are but you can look and see if you can sell your car to a place like CarMax. This would only work if you can get more money selling than the payoff amount. Another option would be to just move the car with you if the military is going to pay for moving expenses. I know for PCS they will pay for 1 car to be moved across the country. Not sure how it works for a shorter term like in your case.
Thanks! good point, I may just go to Carmax to get it appraised and see if I can just pay the difference with the hopes that it is smaller than 1k (4 monthly payment) and potential dings.
As others have stated and what Acura told you is correct. I’ve turned in 3 leases early using SCRA (Toyota, Mazda, Subaru) and all of my deployment orders have been over 180 days.
They are very strict with that. But it’s never hurt my credit. They process it like any other lease return. No financial issues at all
Just an update: I called Acura financial again to ask how much I’ll be paying due to early military termination (I had my card in hand to pay the full amount + disposition fee). Spoke with an absolute sweetheart and asked me if I wanted to send her all my paperwork again so she could try to persuade her manager to do something for me.
In conclusion, she wasn’t able to terminate my entire lease via SCRA but they waived 1 monthly payment (I have 3 left), and waived the turn-in dispo fee.
Which if added 280+350 = $630 of savings.
Very happy with Acura and will definitely lease with them again (if the deals are good ofcourse).
Be nice to those customer service reps guys!