Beware of Dealers That Markup the Lease Acquisition Fee

One of those things is the lease acquisition fee (also referred to as the Lease Inception fee or Origination Fee).

This is a fee charged by the leasing company to cover their initial administrative costs - or so they say. It's really just an additional profit source.

You don't get charged an acquisition fee when you take out a car loan, there's really no reason why you should be charged one for a lease.

These fees usually start at $350 and can be as high as $1,000 for some luxury vehicles.

If a car dealer is setting up the lease for you, you need to make sure they're not marking up the acquisition fee.

Some leasing companies allow dealers to mark up the fee a few hundred dollars and let them keep the difference.

The way to combat this is to comparison shop your lease with several different car dealers. Keep a close eye on this fee and see if they all charge the same thing - if so, it's not likely to be marked up.

Sometimes you can catch this extra fee and save yourself a good chunk of change.

Since you should be comparison shopping your lease anyway, It's certainly worth the extra effort to pay attention to this fee.