Article 746
Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, the rent of a financial lease contract shall be determined on the basis of most or all of the cost of purchasing the leased object and the reasonable profit of the lessor.
I. Purpose of this Article
This article is about the determination of the rent of the financial lease contract.
II. Evolution of the Provisions
This article absorbs the provisions of Article 243 of the original Contract Law to clarify the composition of rent in a financial lease contract.
3. Interpretation of Provisions
This article is a provision on the composition of the rent of a financial lease contract.
There are two ways to determine the rent of the leased property in a financial lease contract: (1) the agreed method. The parties agree that the amount of rent to be paid by the lessee shall be determined according to the agreed rent. (2) Legal method. According to the provisions of this article, the statutory rent composition of the leased object in the financial lease contract is composed of two parts: the cost of purchasing the leased object and the reasonable profit of the lessor. The cost of purchasing a leased property can be mostly or completely. Reasonable profits should be determined within a reasonable limit, and the agreement should not be too high to avoid obvious unfairness. Together, these two parts are the statutory rent amount. In fact, even if the parties agree on the rent, it should be determined according to such a constituent factor of the rent, so as to make the rent agreement more fair.
Whether the rental is calculated is most or all of the expenses incurred in the purchase of the leased object is mainly determined by the ownership of the leased object by the lessor and the lessee as agreed in the lease contract upon the expiration of the lease term, and the ownership of the leased object shall be transferred to the lessee upon the expiration of the lease term, and the rent collected by the lessor shall include all the costs for the purchase of the leased thing; if it is agreed that the lessor shall have the right to take back the leased thing at the expiration of the lease term, or if it is agreed that the lessee can obtain the ownership of the leased thing by paying a part of the price at the expiration of the lease term, the composition of the rent collected by the lessor shall only include part of the purchase price of the leased thing。
4. Cases
Jining Zhongke Company et al. v. Huadian Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. Financial Leasing Contract Dispute
Facts: On May 8, 2014, Huadian Financing Company (the lessor or Party A) and Jining Zhongke Company (the lessee or Party B) signed the Financial Lease Contract. Huadian Financing Co., Ltd. paid 176 million yuan to Jining Zhongke Co., Ltd. for the transfer of leased property after deducting the deposit of 16 million yuan under the "Financial Leasing Contract" and the consulting service fee of 8 million yuan under the "Financial Leasing Consulting Service Contract" issued to it by Jining Zhongke Company on the same day. The court ruled that in this case, the Financial Lease Contract involved in the case stipulated that Jining Zhongke Company had to pay rent to Huadian Financing Company for the leased property. During the term of the contract, Jining Zhongke Company's failure to pay and/or make up any due rent, lease deposit or other payable amounts on time and in full constitutes a breach of contract by Jining Zhongke Company under this contract, and Huadian Capital Company has the right to immediately recover from Jining Zhongke Company all due and unpaid rent, overdue interest, all undue rent and other payables related to this contract. According to the Notice of Rent Adjustment attached to the Financial Lease Contract, Jining Zhongke Company should pay the 15th installment of rent to Huadian Financing Company on February 8, 2018, but Jining Zhongke Company did not pay it. After Huadian Financing filed a lawsuit with the court of first instance on 3 April 2018, Jining Zhongke Company still did not pay the full amount of the above-mentioned 15th installment of rent. At present, Huadian Financing Company's demand for Jining Zhongke Company to pay all the unpaid rent has a legal and contractual basis, and the court supports it.
5. Analysis
Huadian Financing Company has obtained the ownership of the leased property involved in the case, and according to the provisions of the Financial Lease Contract, upon the expiration of the lease term, after Jining Zhongke Company has paid off all the rent, retention purchase price and other payables payable to Huadian Financing Company under the contract, Jining Zhongke Company retains and purchases the leased property according to the "current status quo" and obtains the ownership of the leased property, and the retention purchase price is 10,000 yuan. During the term of the contract, Jining Zhongke Company's failure to pay and/or make up any due rent, lease deposit or other payable amounts on time and in full constitutes a breach of contract by Jining Zhongke Company, and Huadian Financing Company has the right to immediately recover from Jining Zhongke Company all due and unpaid rent, overdue interest, all undue rent and other payables related to the contract from Jining Zhongke Company. In this case, Jining Zhongke Company's failure to pay rent to Huadian Financing Company on time constituted a breach of contract as stipulated in the Financial Lease Contract. Therefore, Huadian Financing Company's request for Jining Zhongke Company to pay the retained purchase price of 10,000 yuan for the retained leased property after paying all the unpaid rents has a contractual basis and should be supported. Jining Zhongke Company's grounds of appeal that it was not required to pay the repurchase price of 10,000 yuan to Huadian Financing Company could not be sustained.