Nissan Lease?

[Anonymous]

Hi! I'm very new to this site and seriously working on credit itself, so please forgive me if this is difficult to read. 

TL;DR: Will my less than great credit score ruin the tier 1 lease qualifications for the primary leasee? 

I was the victim of identity theft by my at the time husband and his mistress Because they were able to use my physical address and P.O. Box, this was incredibly hard to prove until 6 yrs later when I was arrested because they wrote a bad check to a casino (crazy story, I'll tell if anyone is interested). Since I'm able to lease my vehicles in my company's name and my home is owned outright, I just gave up on using credit, period. 
I started working on my credit last year when I realized that I may want to sell my home (no mortgage on my credit report).  I currently have a couple of credit cards, the oldest being a card from about 15 yrs ago with a $16,000 limit, used and paid completely off only enough to keep open. Since last November I've been an authorized user on an Amex with "no limit" (one report says it's 50k, others just have an "-"), it generally carries $1-2,000 balance but sometimes goes up to $10-14000 if that happens all but $1000 is paid off before the end of the cycle. In September (when I realized that I needed to work harder, I opened a finger hut card ($400) that I've never used and a  Capital one ($200) along with an authorized user card for my son. That card is used and paid off every month with the exception of last month when I decided to carry a small balance ($50) to see if that helped. I have nothing derogatory.

My credit scores are:

Experian FICO score 8 (not boosted):721

Experian mortgage lending: 742

Experian Auto Lending: 696

Experian Credit card lending: 727

Equafax Vantagescore 3.0: 739 

Transunion FICO score 8: 700

I just don't have any substantial history. 

My lease is up and I'm going to be leasing a Nissan Maxima. The lease will be in my boss's name (he's the sole proprietor of our firm). He's willing to allow me to be added but I don't want it to have any negative affect on the lease special that he qualifies for because of his 40 year streak of "immaculate credit". Does anyone know if including me on the lease would cause the application to not qualify for Tier 1? 

[lhcole77]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My lease is up and I'm going to be leasing a Nissan Maxima. The lease will be in my boss's name (he's the sole proprietor of our firm). He's willing to allow me to be added but I don't want it to have any negative affect on the lease special that he qualifies for because of his 40 year streak of "immaculate credit". Does anyone know if including me on the lease would cause the application to not qualify for Tier 1? 

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I don't have exact experience related to your question, but I do have something similar.

Years ago when I first took my first auto loan, I had to get a cosigner in order to qualify. My score was awful. His was 780+. The loan was approved but at a >10% rate due to my score. I did not benefit from his score with regards to the APR, but I did benefit because the bank finally said yes once I got a cosigner. Since I was the one actually applying for the loan and he was just helping me as a cosigner, they went with me as the primary and used my score to determine terms of the loan.

Your situation seems different, however. If he is the one applying as the primary and you are being added to it, I would imagine your score won't affect his Tier 1+ rating. I would guess that they will use his score as the primary. But I would double check with others just to be safe.

Welcome to the Forums!

[sccredit]

About 6 months after a bankruptcy discharge we leased a new Infiniti (same finance company) with my wife as primary (she did not file), reporting score of 826 and me as secondary with a score of 620 and they gave us prime terms based on her scores. YMMV but I think you'd probably be okay on your own and I don't think there would be any negative impact of you being on the lease.

[Harvey26]

@Anonymous  I think you will be fine. I obtained a 4% interest with a 704 at nissan. So I am sure you will still qualify for the best rates and terms and this will help build your score up. I would also look into Chase or Discover or AMEX for a new card. Who is your 15 yr card with? 

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much! The lessor's credit is in the mid 840s so it seems like I should be okay. This would be a huge help to my credit so after reading these replies I think we'll at least try. If it doesn't work out, the hit to my credit for the inquiry will be worth it. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for the welcome!  
I'm hoping that will be the case, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and ask the salesman to run it to see. I'm just afraid that it will negatively affect the special and I'll have the inquiry dragging me down for two years. I've been denied for other cards due to my "thin credit file" so I had told myself that I wouldn't apply for anything else until those inquiries are gone (September 2022). 

Thank you again for the welcome and the advice, I really appreciate it!