So, regarding the above, has anyone got to the end of their loan period, and if so, what did they end up paying? (This threw me as I thought your payments covered the whole cost of the bike, not that you pay for so long, then buy the bike after a set time, which your employers – or a finance company if they’ve used one – own)

The FAQs on the C2WS site says:

What happens at the end of the loan period?
Most employers opt to sell you the bike and accessories, and you will pay the fair market value; this is the amount that a buyer would pay to a seller to purchase the bike and equipment. Each bike is assessed separately, but in our experience the market shows values to be around 5% of the original voucher value plus VAT. The fair market value cannot be stated before or during the scheme as this could be considered a benefit in kind as hire-purchase does not warrant any tax-relief.

So has anyone got to this point, and if so, did they pay around 5% of the voucher cost, or more, or less?

Cheers all.

i haven’t paid anything yet. got to the end of the loan period about 10 months ago…

From what I have hears the final payment is usually equal to your previous monthly payments.

pjt201 –
So were you supposed to – has it just not happened or do you/your employers just not expect anything more to happen – ie it’s yours and the paperwork would cost more to do than the residual value of your bike?

most companies will charge you as the bike will be on the books and they cant give it away free, from what ive read on here the typical final payment tends to be anything from £10 to £50.

The bike belongs to the company, until you buy it off them. You’re just leasing it off your employer.

Ours was 10% – i thought that was a bit high and had pushed for 5, but the accountants advising my employer were concerned that would make it a bit too much like an untaxed benefit apparently.

We got a 10% discount off RRP though, so I guess it more or less worked out.

The 10% came off gross salary, same as the installments.

Mine was supposed to be 5% and I was asked whether I wanted to buy it or not for that. I said yes and heard no more about it, assuming they’d take it out of salary, but I’m actually sure they did as there was no deduction from January’s salary and my last normal payment was, I think, December.

It would have been less than 40 quid though (they had a £750 limit) so I might not have noticed 😉

from what i have read elsewhere – customary for it to be a ‘nominal’ figure – ie whatever the accountant will swallow. this is on the basis that they could sell it at ‘market value’ to anyone in the street, but in order to do so ( and avoid liability ), they would have to have the thing serviced and given a clean bill of health. as it is your responsibility to keep it maintained during your stewardship, if you buy it and it falls apart a week later, that’s your fault, but if they wanted to pass it on to someone else, they can’t take your word for it that it has been maintained properly.
in your case that’s a very sensible approach…

did you buy it then?

£10 for our one regardless of the bike’s original value…

Mine (Wife scheme) was up last week. They gave it to us for free, just had to sign a leter for transfer of ownership. The scheme did say it was going to make a charge at the end, but guess it was to much hassle. Starts again in July, already starting to pick something new out. Its a shame it only upto £1000.

£20 for a (nominal) £1,000 Focus Cayo…

generally somewhere between a tenner and 10% although there is a story about someone who new someone who’s company gave them away to charity! (did know before entering the scheme)

didn’t that charity one get “stollen” at the last minute?

Thanks all – varying answers but the theme seems to be that it isn’t gonna cost much at the end.

Del – yep, I’m now the proud owner of a Santa Cruz Nomad with some scary looking Fox 36s – oh dear!

£1, phew

as others have stated a ‘nominal’ fee is the norm, i’m gonna wait for the first people to use the scheme to get round to 12 months to make sure their definition of nominal matches mine.

Dougie – i’m a little scared now, thats gonna cause a fair bit of damage in Verbier!

I was told you don’t have to buy the bike at the end of the loan period. If you’re still at the company and still using it for biking to work as I’m sure you all are 😉 then you don’t need to buy it off the company, just keep using it.

Then after 6 months or a year later on from the end of the loan its worth even less and it might just be a case of signing for ownership.