How to Terminate Your Lease Early

Last Modified: May 28, 2019 by Jeff Ostroff

In This Section:

How Avoid Early Lease Termination Penalties
Beware of Early Termination at a Dealer

1. How Avoid Early Lease Termination Penalties

Don't actually terminate, swap it instead! You got into a lease months ago and now you want out. Maybe you bit off more than you can chew, you got laid off, etc... Remember that you signed a contract and early termination has stiff penalties. This usually includes the remainder of the payments plus penalties. It can ruin your credit and can hurt your ability to buy your next car.

Shift your strategy from terminating a lease early to a strategy of transferring your lease to another buyer via an auto lease trade. Use sites like Swapalease.com to transfer your car lease. They can do a car lease swap for you, reassigning your lease to another buyer. You list your car, there's plenty of buyers looking to get into a lease. They want your lease because you already made the down payment and took the depreciation hit. To attract buyers, offer incentives like $100 cash to take over for you. People love to get "discounts" or cash back.

Here's some benefits:

With the car lease trade, a buyer takes over your car lease in their name, your name comes off the auto lease
No early lease termination penalties for you, your credit stays intact
It's cheaper than paying thousands in early lease termination penalties
You avoid car dealer scams, you are not trading in a car, you are transferring your obligation to another buyer

2. Beware of Early Termination at a Dealer

Dealers pay off your existing lease plus termination penalties to buy you out of your current contract. Then they finance all that extra debt into the new deal. Now you are actually paying for 2 cars. This puts you in a far worse position than you were in before. Even if your monthly payments drop, you will pay more in the long run.