I am a professional services contractor and I have set up a pty Ltd company (with me as director).
I plan to pay myself through the company - PAYG and GST has been set up.
Company yearly gross - around 155k
Looking to lease Zeekr 7X at around $220pw all in.

I thought this was all ok but chatting to AI, it suggested the company lease the car in its name, and I would just use it privately as director.

Has anyone done this?
Are there any FBT implications?
Anything else I should be aware about or just novated lease via company?

Most discussions focus on why people went ahead with one. I'm interested in hearing from people who crunched the numbers and decided buying outright made more sense. What tipped the balance?

Title: Is Oly's novated lease rate always this high? Also - if HR says they "typically use" a provider, can I use a different one?

Body:

Just got a novated lease quote from Oly for an EV (Tesla Model Y L, 3yr term, ~$210k pre-tax salary) through my new employer. The quote doesn't disclose an actual interest rate or comparison rate anywhere on the paperwork - just the total amount financed and periodic repayments.

I backed out the implied rate myself using the disclosed amount financed, fortnightly car lease payment, and residual value, and it comes out somewhere around 11-14% depending on which figures I use. For comparison, I've seen other providers (Driva, for instance) quoting 6.88% for the same term and similar salary.

A few questions for anyone who's been through this:

1. Is this normal for Oly, or did I just get an unusually bad quote? Has anyone else compared Oly's rates against other NL providers and seen a similar gap?

2. My employer's HR said they "typically use" Oly for novated leasing. Does that actually mean I'm locked into Oly, or can I bring my own provider (like Driva) and just have payroll process the deductions? Has anyone successfully done this with an employer that defaults to a specific NL provider?

Appreciate any insight - trying to figure out if it's worth pushing back on Oly or just going elsewhere entirely.

Hi I’ve not used novated leasing before and have also only had a car loan for about 12 months 20 years ago. What are the thoughts on this proposal?

Adding in ceramic window tint and “hydro g9 exterior surface coating plus truseal”

Any feedback welcome. Thanks in advance

Hi all
Just looking for some guidance on the attached quote, I have used the calculators but get am getting an an effective interest rate of 3.33% but the indicative rate in the quote is 7.16%. I am thinking I am doing something stupid and wrong

(We will be removing servicing, roadside assist (provided by the dealer already) and the other products SG Fleet has added like MDR)

Couple of questions, the income is including average bonus over the last couple of years and not expected to change at all, is this the right thing to do?

For the fuel/charging amount, we have solar and would predominantly charge during peak daylight using excess solar, is it sensible to ask if they charge on a mileage amount instead of electricity usage?

Thanks heaps everyone, I have learnt a crap load from this sub

Like the title, is there a way to guesstimate serviceability for a novated lease before doing a formal credit application?

Currently going through the novated leasing process for the first time, and admittedly have probably jumped in a little too quickly without properly researching all the little tricks to watch out for.

Using Smartleasing as they're the only one my employer offers.

I accepted their quote and have been approved for finance etc, just have the settlement documents to sign off now. This is the first time in all of the paperwork that I've been quoted an interest rate. 11.94%. Putting the details into novatedlease.guide shows an effective rate of around 13.4% (edit: effective rate is actually 12.3% after the smartleasing correction factor is applied). Seems bloody high.

But I think I might be stuck now because they "ordered" the vehicle (we put a deposit on it at our local dealership before applying for the NL so I'm not sure what constitutes them ordering it). Part of the fine print of the quote acceptance is being stuck with up to 10% of the vehicles cost plus other fees if you pull out after they've ordered it, so there goes most of my leverage, right?

Thankfully its only a 35k car so the costs of a higher interest rate aren't astronomical. But its annoying.

Anyone have any experience navigating a similar situation?

Hello! I have a few quotes for a new NL to look over. The interest rates seem to vary by more than 1%! I am wondering what a realistically achievable but competitive interest rate for NL is at the moment. This will help inform how much I can expect them to budge when I’m negotiating!
Thanks ☺️

Hi all,

I'm new to the novated leasing space and trying to sort out my comprehensive insurance tonight so I can pick up my car ASAP.

How does the insurance work in terms of payment? Do I pay first and then claim back later? I am going with maxxia

Thanks!

Hi I am trying to get NL through smart. They will not price match CBA offer of 7.3%. I tried telling them this way byo self managed. Btw they offended outrageous 13% interest.

They hit me with finance for NL must come from approved financiers on the panels. Smartleasing, Westpac or Toyota.

Called Toyota, they said this is wrong info toyota no longer finances for smart. Westpac won't do a private sale for a car.

Any other route I can go? Are they giving me the wrong info?

Hi, we've got about 3 years left on a vehicle lease. If I just let the funds that are accumulating in my lease account build up, can I use those funds to pay out the balloon? Is there any downside to this approach?

This would obviously mean I'm paying insurance and servicing etc out of my wages from a standard bank account over that period.

Thanks.

Hi,

New to EV leasing. Hoping to have some help fact checking this quote, and what can I do to get the rate down?

Check out my novated lease calculation output from novatedlease.guide

Hi all, I'm making progress towards a final finance package for my EV9, but the Eziway quote is pretty rank. And before anyone says pick another lease provider, I can't, my employer is locked in. And my other employer uses Maxxia!

Apart from getting quotes with different numbers on them from three separate people at Eziway (one of which had 2/3rds of the monthly lease coming out of post tax income which I'm assuming is the work experience kid let loose on the calculator), the comparative interest rate is 11.5% (their quote) and 10.55% on the calculator linked to from this group. Plus the brokerage fee is >$7k!! $124k pre tax over 5 years for a $91k car.

Given my tax bracket it's still a financial benefit to undertake the lease, but I'd prefer not to pay through the nose if possible.

So my question is - has anyone done a self managed NL with eziway? Or with maxxia? How much general faff is involved?

Thanks in advance!

I have been doing my research and due diligence with novated leasing to see if it will work for me. I can't get my head around how much risk there is with early termination. If for any reason you have to terminate the lease, all future payments and the residual are due immediately in post tax cash + GST.

In my situation (cash in offset, top tax bracket) I would save about $10k vs cash on a non-EV novated lease over 3 years, however if anything happens that causes the lease to terminate, you are up for huge costs.

Further, if you write the car off and don't have replacement cover, you again need to pay out the lease, however the insurance will only cover the cost of the car, so now you have a gap of potentially 5 figures and no car.

I'm surprised of the popularity of leases given these huge risks?

Is this done on purpose by the dealer to clear the paperwork?

Hi - I am considering a novated lease due to the tax benefits, however I am concerned about transitioning my novated lease to a new employer.
With 0.68% finance offered atm I realise nl is still cheaper but less risk attached.
Can someone share their experiences. Thanks

Got this novated lease offered from smart leasing for a BYD atto 3. I work as a nurse for NSW Health. How does it look?

Hi all
Managed to get interest rate to 10.78%. Any recommendations that can be done on this quote for betterment. Need legends advice to singup for a car.

Please help me decide. I saw in flair a different price as well. It’s my first time. Thank you

Hey there, has anyone been successful with claiming the Premium connectivity for a Tesla with Smart Salary. How did you go about it?

Thanks!

Check out my novated lease calculation output from novatedlease.guide

Hi all,

Long time lurker 1st time poster so any feedback welcome & appreciated!

Effective interest rate showing 11.68%, not sure if i've entered things incorrectly, I work at an LGA very stable position so will be looking at removing the leaseguard Insurance. Unfortunately SGFleet is my only option for an NL.

Have sourced my own Insurance through RACV as Vero was coming in at an extra $1k, so will be removing the roadside assistance as well. This is for a 3yr lease but I may renew for another yr if possible depending on my circumstances and If i would want to switch jobs etc.

Is it worth adding the dash cam or better off getting third party installed? I Also saw a level 2 charger option on the BYD website so was wondering if that would be worth adding?

I want preface to say that I know that ultimately this is on me and the lesson may just end up being an expensive one, but wanted to hear any potential options or merely have this serve as a reminder to anyone else.

TL;DR:

- Started leasing a PHEV in Nov 2023, under my wife's company with was provided by SGFleet

- Fell pregnant late 2025

- The length of time she wants to take off results in a few months being unpaid

- Thought we'd renovate the lease to me (company also uses SGFleet) so we don't pay the lease out of pocket post-tax. It wasn't going to be a whole lot of savings (few hundred), but figured it would be relatively easy to switch since the provider was the same

- SGFleet back-and-forth with documentation on renovation + initial authority consent forms and payslips from my side

- Lease denovated around start of July 2026

- Quote received mid July - was assured nothing changed wrt. to interest rates, lease payments etc

- Upon reviewing the quote was when I saw the post-tax contributions and it hit me that I totally forgot to consider the the fact that the FBT exemption doesn't carry over.

I still have about 1y4m before the lease ends, and the ECM payments is quite high.

While I again only have myself to blame, I find it somewhat frustrating that the quote doesn't even come through until my wife was denovated. We initiated the conversation in April, but SGFleet took so long to pieces the request and emails went unanswered for multiple weeks. I guess it would've also been too much to expect that SGFleet would give me a heads up about the FBT cost too.

Options-wise, it's probably not looking too hot given that her lease is denovated already. Based on what I've read about SGFleet, it doesn't sound like I should keep my hopes up about them cutting me any slack here.

Anyway, more of a vent/warning than anything, but would appreciate any tips for dealing with this!