cycle to work scheme

stueyc

anyone know if your employer does a credit check for the hire agreement??

Simon Notley

I'm pretty sure the answer is no, unless your employer gives vouchers over £1000 in which case I'm not sure.

stueyc

maximum is £1000....don't want any prying eyes into my business..if you get my drift

prawny

They can't they're not actually giving you any money just just reducing your salary each month.

There's no way of not paying even if you leave they just take it all out of your final payday.

Hope this helps

stueyc

Thankyou...could be a little uncomfy if they did!

nick hanson

why's that then? is your final payday linked to the price of a saddle? :shock:

spen666

stueyc wrote:

maximum is £1000....don't want any prying eyes into my business..if you get my drift

there is no max

The £1000 figure only applies if there is no credit licence held by the employer.

The cycle to work scheme has no upper limit per se

alfablue

Spen is right, all employers are covered by a Group Credit Licence, up to £1000. For more than that they require a Standard Credit Licence (which they may already have, depending on the nature of their business, or by virtue of doing the computer purchase scheme of a few years ago). So with the Standard licence, in theory, the sky is the limit. More tricky is where employers have the group licence, but the employee wants to top-up with their own money, in theory there is no problem, but many employers won't sanction this as it complicates matters with part of the bike owned by them, and part by the employee. Nevertheless, quite a few shops circumvent this anyway and just invoice for the £1000 and let you pay any extra you want.

stueyc

gotta go through Halfords..would love to add £250 of my own to the £1000

would halfords do this ?

stueyc

gotta go through Halfords..would love to add £250 of my own to the £1000

would halfords do this ?

FSR_XC

There is supposed to be a clamp down on taking £1k on Cycle to Work and paying the extra.

Not quite in the spirit of the scheme.

spen666

FSR_XC wrote:

There is supposed to be a clamp down on taking £1k on Cycle to Work and paying the extra.

Not quite in the spirit of the scheme.

Why not? spirit of scheme is to get people cycling more is it not?

FSR_XC

. . . . . but do you 'need' a £1k+ bike to 'ride to & from work'?

I'm not saying there aren't places that will let you pay the extra.

goblin

The 'grey' area of the bike to work scheme that Im not happy with is the fact that you don't legally own the bike at the end of the 'hire' period. This is because it would then be classed as hire purchase.
The company are obliged to offer you the bike at a 'fair second hand market value' at the end of the 'hire' term; again a grey area open to interpretation. Admittedly, most companies would hand over the bike free of charge, or at the vary least at a nominal charge, as printed in most literature.
But let's say you bought a Bianchi from Evans at £1000. After a year, a 'fair second hand market value' could be around £500 if well looked after. There is nothing that could stop your employer from charging you this at the end of the term and keeping the bike for themselves if you decline.. Again, admittedly most wouldn't. But if you happened to have a falling out with your employer or they happened to be right b&st**ds there is nothing that could stop them from doing this. So make sure you know your employer before going ahead.

beverick

goblin wrote:

The 'grey' area of the bike to work scheme that Im not happy with is the fact that you don't legally own the bike at the end of the 'hire' period. This is because it would then be classed as hire purchase.
The company are obliged to offer you the bike at a 'fair second hand market value' at the end of the 'hire' term; again a grey area open to interpretation. Admittedly, most companies would hand over the bike free of charge, or at the vary least at a nominal charge, as printed in most literature.
But let's say you bought a Bianchi from Evans at £1000. After a year, a 'fair second hand market value' could be around £500 if well looked after. There is nothing that could stop your employer from charging you this at the end of the term and keeping the bike for themselves if you decline.. Again, admittedly most wouldn't. But if you happened to have a falling out with your employer or they happened to be right b&st**ds there is nothing that could stop them from doing this. So make sure you know your employer before going ahead.

The bike is actually owned by the company issuing the credit agreement or whoever administers the scheme, not necessarily your employer.

More enlightened employers share the VAT with their employees hence reducing the cost of the nike further. Not where I work though.

The other pitfall is that you're actually committing to 'buy' a voucher to the value of £x rather than a bike. The gamble in the case of our scheme is that H*lfords (sorry for swearing), or the supplier the scheme uses, can supply the bike you want for the price you want.

I nearly bought a Dahon folder on our scheme last year but as the models and prices were due to change between signing the agreement and getting the voucher, there was a large risk that the voucher would't cover the cost of the bike I wanted.

As you cannot cancel the voucher under these circumstances the chances of ending up with a one year credit agreement, a voucher for £x and no bike is too high for my liiking especially when you take H*lfords 'take it or leave it' approach to customer service into consideration.

Bob

alfablue

goblin wrote:

The 'grey' area of the bike to work scheme that Im not happy with is the fact that you don't legally own the bike at the end of the 'hire' period. This is because it would then be classed as hire purchase.
The company are obliged to offer you the bike at a 'fair second hand market value' at the end of the 'hire' term; again a grey area open to interpretation. Admittedly, most companies would hand over the bike free of charge, or at the vary least at a nominal charge, as printed in most literature.
But let's say you bought a Bianchi from Evans at £1000. After a year, a 'fair second hand market value' could be around £500 if well looked after. There is nothing that could stop your employer from charging you this at the end of the term and keeping the bike for themselves if you decline.. Again, admittedly most wouldn't. But if you happened to have a falling out with your employer or they happened to be right b&st**ds there is nothing that could stop them from doing this. So make sure you know your employer before going ahead.

Two points, the employer (or bike owner) is under no obligation to sell it to you (though no employer wants a fleet of bikes to dispose of). Second, Evans themselves have written an article of second-hand bike valuations (can't find it at the moment), but the values for other than "as new" were extremely low.

None of the ambiguities would put me off using the scheme for one minute though! My employer genuinely wants to raise it's green transport credentials, and is very happy to be appearing to offer a benefit to staff, too. Meanwhile, they are putting staff car parking charges up to £85 per year, from £15

Headhuunter

I was wondering what happens if you are made redundant part way through the initial year-18 month "hire period"? Do you just get the option to buy the bike or do you leave having coughed up money up to that point, with nothing?

Colzer1

my compnay lets you buy the bike on your own credit card, submit your receipts in the normal way as doen for claiming expenses, they then pay you the cost of the bike. We have to submit a detailed out line of what is going to be bought and the costs for approval initially, once authorised you go and get the bike. if you have a good relationship with your LBS get them to give you a receipt up to the agreed value even though your purchase actually cost more. this also allows to you build a bike to your own spec etc..

it works pretty well and I've had no trouble with it