Who is the registered keeper of a lease car?

When you lease a car you aren’t the owner and you don’t have the option, or obligation, to buy it at the end of the deal. Ownership rests with the leasing company but what does that mean in terms of legal responsibility for the car? That partly depends on who the lease car’s registered keeper is.  

What is a registered keeper?

The registered keeper is the person or company whose name appears on the car’s V5C logbook. This means they are responsible for making sure the car is road legal with the correct road tax paid and an MOT, if applicable.

However, the registered keeper can be a different person to the car’s owner. This means you can own a car but someone else’s name appears on the V5C – usually the main driver of the car.

Crucially, the registered keeper is the person or company that will receive any parking or speeding fines connected to the car, which they can either pay or pass on to the main driver.

Who is the registered keeper of a lease car?

A lease car’s registered keeper is the finance company. Even though you are the main driver of a lease car and likely to be paying for the insurance, you are neither the owner nor registered keeper. 

This can present some challenges. For example, an insurance company will want to know who the owner and registered keeper of a car are, so you will need to tell them you are insuring a lease car. This is where a lease deal that includes insurance can make life simpler.

Something else to consider is that if you want to go abroad with the car you will need to ask the finance company for a VE103B form beforehand. This is a Vehicle on Hire certificate, an authenticated document with the name and address of the driver, not the owner or registered keeper. It’s an alternative to the V5C and proves the lease company has agreed to you driving the car abroad.

What is the difference between a registered keeper and an owner?

You can own a car without being the registered keeper, and vice versa. The registered keeper of a car is the person or company who looks after it and keeps it road legal with insurance, road tax, and paying any fines. A registered keeper’s name and address will appear on the V5C logbook.

The owner of a car is the person who paid for it, decides when to sell it and gets that money. For instance, parents might buy a teenage child their first car, with the child’s name on the V5C logbook but the parents as the ultimate owners of the car.

With lease cars, the finance firm is the registered keeper and owner. The person leasing the car is essentially renting the car and will not own the car at the end of the lease period, so they are not considered the registered keeper.

What are the responsibilities of the car’s registered keeper?

A registration document is not proof of ownership, but a V5C registration document should show who is responsible for all official communication. In the case of a lease deal, that is the finance company.

Should you receive a parking fine or any sort of penalty notice from the police, this will be sent to the finance company address as the registered keeper. They may pay a fine and pass on the cost to you directly or add it to your next lease payment. Most lease companies will also include an administrative fee for this. Alternatively, they can pass on your details to the company issuing the fine to contact you directly. In the case of police penalty notices, this is the most likely action and you will have to provide details of who was driving the car at the time of the offence.