destaccado

In May 2007 I leased a 2007 Porsche Cayman from Hammersley Automotive in VA through Porsche Financial. In order to secure the lease and lower my payments I placed a $10,000 down payment of which approx $365 was my first monthly payment and the rest was referred to as a Capitalized Cost Reduction in my lease paperwork.

Fast forward to today and I have turned in my vehicle in accordance with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act as of 26 Feb 2009. This act basically allows members of the armed forces who are deployed for over 180 days (as is the case with me, I'm a National Guard member headed to Iraq for the second time) to turn in their automotive leases without penalty.

It also stipulates in "Section 305 subsection (f) RENT PAID IN ADVANCE- Rents or lease amounts paid in advance for a period after the effective date of the termination of the lease shall be refunded to the lessee by the lessor (or the lessor's assignee or the assignee's agent) within 30 days of the effective date of the termination of the lease."

Porsche financial's representative has claimed that my $10,000 initial payment was neither an advanced payment of rent nor a lease amount paid in advance. Seeing as how the amount was amortized over the course of the lease, I don't see how they can claim that I am not owed a pro-rated refund.

Also, what if I had paid $22,311 of a $22,312 capitalized cost and made .03 payments for 36 months. Using their logic, no refund would be warranted either.
In fact, when I turned in a vehicle under similar circumstances to Ford in 2005 (an SVT F150 Lightning) they refunded a pro-rated portion of this same "capitalized cost reduction" albeit my down payment had been $2k as opposed to nearly 10...

Needless to say, I have little ability to sue Porsche in my absence, and my intent in posting this here is to keep anyone in a similar position to where I was 2 years ago informed, as well as let you guys know how Porsche feels about those of us in the military and our involuntary overseas service obligations.

The most disappointing aspect to all of this is this was my second Porsche (albeit first from Porsche financial) and I was looking forward to many more in the future- I'm sure that since most of you own one, you know what I'm referring to there. Hopefully my conscience will still allow the older type 993 911.

Cliffs:
- I leased a Cayman in 2007, paid $9600 down payment which reduced payments over the course of the lease.
- Mobilized in 2009 for a year in Iraq, turned in car under a law that allows
service members to break automotive leases and receive refund of advanced payments of rent and lease amounts paid in advance.
- Porsche claims no pro-rated refund is warranted and is attempting to keep the entire amount.
- No more new Porsche's for me.

MJPereira

I'm sorry to hear about your situation but I don't understand why you would put such a sizable down payment on a leased car. Essentially you shouldn't put any down payment on a leased automobile since it will never be yours. Whatever you would put down put in a separate account and use to make payments.

I hope you do get your refund but I would say in the future to never put money down on a leased automobile.

fiemiller

I would assume that they weren't going to give him the cayman without the $10K.

Craig B

Guess the logic runs that the $10K is part of the capital component of the lease price, rather than the bit which relates to actually having the car - ie, it is the bit which then allows you to buy the car for less at termination. So if you never buy the car, you blow the dough. I can certainly see how the Porsche guys would get to that conclusion.

BSL

This does seem very wrong, however by the letter of the law, the refund of cap cost reductions isn't necessary (although it would seem like the appropriate good-will gesture that I would want to make at my company).