I had two leased BMW Vehicles BMW 2019 M4 , BMW 2020 X2 in my apartment garage.
The apartment got flooded and Department of Water and power is taking the fault.
After a month, it looks like allstate insurance company came up with valuation of my vehicles.
They both came up more than the payoff amount. BMW never provided allstate insurance with the payoff amount for those vehicles and they just asked allstate what they are offering for those vehicles.
Eventually Allstate provided them with an amount and BMW just agreed.
Allstate just sent the check out to BMW.
I wanted to make sure if I get the overage pay from BMW as its more than what the payoff is.
The representative from BMW financial told me that I won’t be getting that overpaid amount as BMW owns the vehicle and it was leased. Is this true? I’m looking around this forum and it looks like they received the amount back if it’s usually more than the buyoff amount…
It depends on the contract. It’s possible you’re looking at forum postings by people in other states with different contracts, or that contracts have since been updated to allow the lessor to keep the entire insurance payout.
Banks have wisened up to not letting lessees cash out any equity in the vehicle, either (via a sale to a third party such as carvana).
This is exactly why you do not make a down payment on a lease. If the payoff was more than the insurance value, the built in GAP insurance would leave you free and clear.
This is an interesting situation too as to what remedy if any is available to the lessee from the Water dept - BMW is paid off but you are somewhat left SOL on trying to get a comparable lease now under different market conditions. Probably just bad luck but definitely understand the annoying situation.
I went through a similar situation with my 2018 Audi S5.
The insurance company paid Audi $2000 over my buyout price after the car was marked total loss and said I would not get the money. In my case, most of the money I had paid upfront for my lease was not refundable (registration, upfront fees/taxes, etc) so I was left with nothing.
I was told if there was money put as DOWN PAYMENT on the lease and/or some money that went towards the full length of the lease, you would be able to get that back in small claims court due to one side having accepted fault.
In TX, dealers are offering tax credits for “One-pay lease”. For instance, the car got totaled after 6 months of use on a 36 month lease and lessee paid $15000 as One-pay. Someone mentioned in another post that the refund will be pro-rated. Will the lessee get $12500 back as refund for remaining portion of the lease ? Is it risky to pay the entire lease at once in TX ?
BMW is the vehicle owner, not the lessee (you). Lessee’s are just “renting” the car. You may want to look deeper into your contract and see if it covers total-loss situations. As others have said, the state and when the contract was done plays a huge part.
You should absolutely expect the entire overpayment. You pay the insurance. BMW has zero claim to the money. It’s the most basic of contract law. It has nothing to with your lease contract, there is no language in your contract that applies here.
The process is automatic so you likely will have nothing to do. Just wait for the check.
As a lawyer I absolutely understand how this works. It’s OP’s money. There’s no argument here. It’s his insurance contract. If the lease company was paying the insurance - like Volvo does with Care by Volvo - then yeah, no money for OP.
OP, if you do get some $ back that’s awesome, but do not expect it.
The loss payee status of the lessee will make them first in line… Excess payment to satisfy the lease payoff could make its way to you, and I hope it does. It certainly would be the case if you were financing a purchase.
Thank you guys !