PERSONAL AND BUSINESS

Non status car leasing

Non status simply means you do not fit the boxes the mainstream leasing companies tick. That covers a lot of perfectly sensible people and businesses. We look at your bank statements and your circumstances instead.

£299 to £399

a month, inc VAT

3 months

rental up front

36 months

road tax included

10,000

miles a year

It is trade language, not an insult, and most people meet it for the first time after they have already been turned down somewhere.

A standard car lease is agreed by computer. Your details go to a panel of funders, a score comes back, and the answer arrives in seconds. Non status leasing is what happens when a person looks at the application instead, because the automatic answer would have been no for reasons that have very little to do with whether you can afford the car.

That is the whole of it. Non status is not a worse product or a different sort of contract. It is the same three year lease on the same sort of car, agreed a different way.

People with adverse credit. CCJs, defaults, an IVA, a debt management plan, a bankruptcy you have been discharged from. The usual reasons a computer says no.

People with no credit history at all. Never borrowed, always paid cash, or recently arrived in the UK and starting from nothing. Mainstream lenders find an empty file almost as difficult as a poor one, which strikes most people as unfair, and is.

New businesses. A company without three years of filed accounts is invisible to most funders, no matter how well it is trading.

Company directors whose own credit history is getting in the way of a business application.

Anyone whose circumstances are simply unusual. Recently self-employed, income from several places, back in the UK after working abroad. Nothing wrong, just nothing that fits a form.

Your bank statements come first. Three months of them, plus a copy of your driving licence. Our lending partner's underwriter reads them himself and works out whether the payments would sit comfortably alongside everything else you pay each month. Nothing touches your credit file at this stage.

Then a credit check, but only if the first part works. It is a full search, it gets recorded, and we tell you before it happens. Its job is to understand what went wrong and whether you have dealt with it.

Then a decision made by a person. Not a score, and not in four seconds.

The director will need to give a personal guarantee. That is worth being clear about, because it is the part people skim past. A personal guarantee means that if the company cannot make the payments, you pay them yourself, out of your own money. It is normal on business agreements of this kind and it is not something we can waive, but you should go into it knowing exactly what you are signing.

The first three months up front. Somewhere between £900 and £1,200 depending on the car. There is no version of this without it.

Evidence that the payments are affordable. Bank statements, read by a person.

A full UK driving licence for the person who will be driving, and an address in mainland England or Wales. Scotland is not impossible, but ask before you apply.

Most cars are between £300 and £400 a month, including VAT and road tax for the three years. Delivery and collection are free.

Agreements run for 36 months with 10,000 miles a year. Servicing, tyres, MOT and insurance are yours to sort out, and you will need fully comprehensive cover. At the end you hand the car back. There is no option to buy it.

Ordinary, practical cars. Hatchbacks and small SUVs, two to three years old, with mileage already on them.

When we cannot help

• You cannot cover the first three months up front. There is no no-deposit option.
• You have no income from work, whether as an individual or a director drawing from the business.
• You are behind on payments right now, or direct debits are bouncing.
• You drive more than 12,000 miles a year.
• You have been declared bankrupt and have not yet been discharged.