Guide

What does a car lease agreement actually commit you to?

Updated October 2026 7 min read Performance & Prestige

A lease commits you to pay for the term, to stay within an agreed mileage, to keep and return the car in an agreed condition, to insure it, to use it only as permitted and to let nobody else drive it unnamed. It does not commit you to buy the car, ever.

What are you promising?

Seven things, and they are the same seven on nearly every lease whoever wrote it.

To make the payments, for the length of the term.
To stay within the mileage allowance, or pay the rate beyond it.
To keep the car in a condition that meets the return standard.
To insure it, at the level the agreement specifies.
To use it only as permitted, and not to modify it.
To let nobody drive it who has not been named and checked.
To give it back at the end.

Everything else in the document is machinery around those seven. Read them against your own life before you read anything else.

What does committing to a term really mean?

That the payments are owed for the length of the agreement, not for as long as you happen to want the car.

This is the obligation people most often misread, because a monthly payment feels like a subscription. It is not. The term is the thing you agreed to, and the monthly instalments are how it is paid for.

The practical consequence is that the length of the term is the size of the commitment. A four-year agreement is a four-year promise, and there is a price on getting out of it — ending a car lease early sets out how that is calculated.

Every agreement here runs on a three-month minimum term, which is the smallest version of this promise the business writes.

What condition are you committing to return it in?

Not showroom. A standard, and a specific one.

The return standard is what separates ordinary wear from chargeable damage, and the UK industry’s reference point is the fair wear and tear standard published by the BVRLA — measurements rather than opinions, panel by panel. Your agreement will name whatever standard applies to it.

Two practical obligations sit underneath this and are easy to miss. Servicing on schedule, evidenced, because a missing service history is a real reduction in value. And telling the owner about damage rather than arranging your own repair on a car that is not yours.

The hand-back itself is covered in what happens at the end of a car lease.

What are you committing to on mileage and use?

An allowance and a set of permissions, and the second one catches more people than the first.

The allowance is a number in the agreement, and miles beyond it are charged at a rate that is also in the agreement. That is straightforward, and excess mileage covers the mechanics.

Use is less obvious. A lease will typically prohibit hiring the car out, using it for reward, taking it on a track, taking it abroad without permission, and modifying it. None of these is unreasonable when the car belongs to someone else, but all of them are easy to breach without realising, and a breach is a different and more serious thing than a charge.

If you want to do any of them, ask in advance and get the answer in writing.

What are you not committing to?

To buying the car. There is no option to purchase in a lease and no balloon payment at the end — that is the structural difference between leasing and both PCP and hire purchase, and the comparison guide sets the three out.

To an open-ended relationship. The term is the term. What happens after a minimum term is reached is agreed rather than assumed.

To anything you have not been shown. A charge that appears for the first time after signature is a charge worth challenging, and a supplier who publishes the cost stack before the form rather than after it has made that unlikely by design.

Which five clauses should you read twice?

These, in this order, and the whole exercise takes about fifteen minutes.

Early termination. What it costs to stop, with the calculation, not just the existence of a right.
Mileage. The allowance, the rate beyond it, and how a part-period is pro-rated.
Condition and return. The standard, who assesses it, and how a charge is disputed.
Insurance. What level is required, in whose name, and what happens after a total loss.
Default. What counts as a breach and what the owner can do about it.

If any of the five is absent, vague or cross-referenced to a document you have not been given, that is the finding. Ask for it before you sign rather than after.

Can the agreement be changed once it has started?

Not by either side alone, and that cuts both ways.

Anything you want to change — the mileage allowance, a named driver, taking the car abroad — needs agreeing and recording in writing. A change discussed on the phone and not written down is not a change; the document is what will be read at collection, in a dispute, or by anyone who was not on the call.

The same applies to anything the owner wants to change. A variation clause is worth reading for exactly this reason: it tells you what can move without your agreement, which on a well-drafted agreement should be very little.

Keep the correspondence. A dated email confirming a variation has resolved more end-of-term disputes than any amount of recollection.

What should you have in writing before you commit?

The agreement itself, in full, with time to read it — not a summary, not a quote, and not a link to terms you are asked to accept at a checkout.

Alongside it: the monthly figure and the term it is quoted on, the initial payment, the mileage allowance and the rate beyond it, the deposit, the insurance excess, the early termination position, and the delivery and collection arrangements.

That is the whole cost stack, and on this site it is published on each car’s page before any form appears rather than arriving afterwards. Nothing material should be seen for the first time once you have already committed your details.

No payment is taken online here. A person confirms every booking, and that conversation is where the agreement is explained rather than assumed. Our terms and the FAQs are the starting points.

Common questions

Is the agreement the same for every car?

The shape is consistent — a three-month minimum term, one month up front, 1,000 miles a month — but the figures are per vehicle, and cars arranged through a partner carry that partner’s terms. Those are confirmed with you in writing rather than assumed to match ours.

What happens if I break one of the use restrictions?

It depends what and how seriously, and it is handled as a breach rather than as a charge. That is why permission in advance is worth asking for even when the answer seems obviously yes — a written yes costs nothing and removes the question entirely.

Can I let my partner drive the car?

Only if they are named and checked in advance, and only if they meet that vehicle’s own age, licence and points criteria in their own right. An unnamed driver is an uninsured driver, and nobody can be added at the roadside.

Who pays a parking fine or a congestion charge?

You do. Charges incurred while you have the car are yours, and they typically reach the registered keeper first and are passed on, sometimes with an administration fee. Deal with them promptly — they escalate faster than most people expect.

Where can I read the terms before enquiring?

They are published on the site rather than sent after an enquiry, and the cost figures for each car are on that car’s page. If anything in them is unclear, ask before you commit rather than after — that is what the enquiry conversation is for.