Private lease is an attractive alternative to buying a car. You can drive a brand new car for a number of years for a fixed monthly rate and you hardly have to pay attention to other costs. You can notice one of the consequences when applying for a new mortgage with a private lease contract.
Private lease is seen as a payment obligation for the long term, which can reduce your borrowing capacity considerably. This can cause problems when applying for a mortgage, or other financing, if you have a private lease contract.
Testing and registration with BKR
Let’s assume that you can certainly still get a mortgage if you have a private lease car. It doesn’t make things any easier, though. Taking a private lease car is assessed in the same way as buying a house: because it is a financial obligation over a long period of time, your borrowing capacity is reduced. This is due to the Credit Registration Bureau, or BKR. The BKR keeps track of how much money you borrow and how you deal with those loans, to ensure that you can pay your monthly charges. It is quite possible that you are already in the system at the BKR, for example because of a credit card or telephone subscription.
If your private lease contract is registered with the BKR, this has consequences for your borrowing capacity. Part of the total amount of the contract is entered into the system with the BKR. A private lease contract consists of two parts: a financial part and a part that is intended for service. The financial part is registered with the BKR by the leasing company and accounts for approximately 65 percent of the total amount.
Calculation example private lease registration BKR
Imagine that you take out a private lease contract for 350 euros per month with a duration of 48 months (4 years). You can think of a car in the Opel Corsa, Nissan Micra, Peugeot 208 category, for example if you assume 15,000 km per year. The total amount of the contract is then 16,800 euros. The financial part of this amount (65 percent) is EUR 10,920. This is the amount that is registered with the BKR. Banks usually assume that you will pay off 2 percent of your debt every month. In this calculation example, this is rounded off 218 euros. Without a private lease car you can get a maximum of 1,000 euros per month in mortgage. Then your maximum mortgage amount drops to 782 euros per month. That’s a big difference.
If you want to conclude a private lease contract with a lease company that is affiliated with the Private Lease Quality Mark, there will always be a BKR registration. This is one of the conditions the quality mark sets for providers of lease contracts, to ensure that customers do not take too much on their fork and end up in a position that they cannot pay all their monthly payments. A BKR registration only follows with private lease; if you drive a company car, you won’t get it. Business leasing is a form of payment in kind, because the company takes care of the costs and lends you the car. In some cases, you can still avoid a BKR registration with a private lease by finding a lease company that is not affiliated with the Private Lease Quality Mark. However, these providers are in the minority.
What if you already have a mortgage?
It is of course also possible that you already have a mortgage when you want to take out a private lease car. In this case, you probably don’t have to worry about not being allowed to lease. After all, you have already concluded the contract for the mortgage, so leasing a car privately will not affect your current mortgage. However, your monthly charges will increase as a result of the new payment obligation. Therefore, determine in advance how much you are willing to pay in total, so that you have enough money left for other things.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl