So I think I dug myself into the grave. I leased a RAV4 Prime last year around July and then the car payments were too high and I wasn’t able to get financing to buy it out. My work has been downsizing so I wanted to lower my payments. I was dumb enough and read some discussion boards and saw that you could trade in your car early. So I found a cheap Honda and had some equity so traded it in. I asked the Honda salesperson if I would have any implications or if I would not be able to do it. He said it was ok (should have not trusted him).
How bad of a situation did I get myself into. The lease contract says that a third party cannot buy out the car. Like am I %($#)$W()#W?
I’ve read that some dealers are a part of a network, but what if it’s a small mom and pop dealership. Would that be considered third party? I login to my TFS account and it’s still stating that I have a payment due, but the dealership processed the buyout.
There are some dealers who are willing to take cars and run them through dealer auctions as “title pending”, which is a workaround for being unable to purchase the car directly from you. I don’t know the specifics of your situation but that may be a possibility. I had a US Bank lease that was supposedly impossible to buyout but I had a broker here do exactly that for me without any implications. I had several other dealers admit to me that it could possibly be done too.
Well my lease was with TFS and I just read their contract and they said no third party lease buyouts. I called the dealership and they said they don’t have any “network” dealers to keep the Toyota in network. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post, I’m literally freaking out. I’m reading my contract and it’s stating early termination would require all remaining lease payments and fees and other scary language.
As far as I know, anyone can buy Toyota/Lexus or Mazda leases through Toyota Financial. I dont think anything changed recently. You shouldnt be worried, as long as in the contract shows that you are trading in the RAV4, the dealership can not do anything besides paying it off.
