She had anticipated everything to make his life easier… What he discovers afterwards will help him more than he would have imagined. Fabrice tells us how he became (unintentionally) the owner of a new car for free.
Married for more than 40 years, Joëlle and Fabrice decided to take out a car leasing contract, to no longer struggle on a daily basis and to be automatically taken care of in the event of a repair. A security and above all a tranquility to which these two retirees aspired to better enjoy their old days.
This form of long-term rental allows you to have a new vehicle without becoming its owner. Concretely, this consists of paying monthly payments for a specific period, generally 2 to 5 years, to use your car. At the end of the contract, the user has the option of returning the vehicle to the dealership, renewing the lease for a newer model, or sometimes, purchasing the car for a remaining amount called the “residual value.” This method of financing is often chosen for its flexibility, because it allows you to drive a new car with a monthly budget that is often lower than that of a traditional car loan. On the other hand, monthly rentals do not result in full ownership of the vehicle; a certain amount must generally be added. However, this is what happened to Fabrice, although he did not want this situation.
In fact, his wife insisted that her husband take out a leasing offer in his name. She then chooses the model with all the possible options and opts for a Toyota hybrid, paying the monthly payments provided for in the contract. “I think she probably had everything planned and knew she might leave us” testifies with emotion Fabrice, who became a widower a few months later. He suspected nothing. But his wife seems to have anticipated things when she learned that she had cancer.
Indeed, following the announcement of this bad news, she took out death insurance which allowed her husband to inherit the car and become its owner (the spouses being married under the community regime). Shortly after the death of his wife, after the painful ordeal and the pain, quickly comes the management of the paperwork and the inheritance, Fabrice realizes with astonishment that the car worth more than 20,000 euros is his. “In addition to recovering the car, the insurance also reimbursed me for all the monthly payments paid since the death of my wife.”he explains to us.
The insurance confirms that the “death guarantee subscribed to in the contract” implies transferring the vehicle to an heir in the event of death, as part of an inheritance. “Rents continue until the insurance is paid. Rent collected after the date of death will be returned to you“, the insurance company told him by mail. For Fabrice, this unexpected situation was both a source of relief and a final form of foresight on the part of his wife, who, even in pain, had thought of her family.
