You generally have four options: buy the machine at fair market value, buy it for one dollar if that was your structure, renew the agreement, or return the equipment. Check your notice period, because many agreements auto-renew if you do nothing.
When a copier lease reaches the end of its term you normally choose between four routes:
The single most important thing in this part of the contract is the notice period. Many copier leases renew automatically unless you give written notice within a defined window before the end date — and that window can close months before the term actually expires.
If you miss it, you may find yourself in a further committed period on equipment you intended to return. Find the notice requirement in your agreement now rather than in the final month, and diarise it well ahead of the deadline.
Returns are rarely as simple as switching the machine off. Expect to consider:
With an FMV structure, ask how the buyout figure is calculated and get it in writing before committing. With a $1 buyout there is nothing to negotiate — ownership simply transfers.
Once you own the machine, the service arrangement becomes the thing to review. An owned copier still needs toner and maintenance, and that agreement may be separate from the lease that just ended. See maintenance plans.
Renewal is worth treating as a fresh negotiation rather than a formality. Your page volume has probably changed across the term, and the machine that suited you five years ago may be over- or under-specified now. Pull your actual page counts before agreeing to anything.
End of term is the natural point to ask whether the machine still matches the business. Pull the page counts for the last twelve months and compare them with what you were printing when you signed. Two patterns are common.
Volume has fallen, which is the more frequent case as more work moves to screen. If so, you may be paying for capacity you no longer use, and a smaller machine will cut both the payment and the service cost. Or volume has grown, or the colour proportion has risen, in which case a machine at its limit is producing service calls that a correctly sized replacement would not.
The worst outcome at end of term is not choosing the wrong option — it is making no decision at all and discovering the agreement rolled over. An automatic renewal on ageing equipment tends to be the most expensive route available, because you continue paying for a machine whose value has largely been recovered, with no renegotiation of rate or specification.
Put the notice date in a calendar the day you sign, with a reminder a month before it. That single step avoids most end-of-term problems.
The comfortable approach is to start reviewing roughly six months out. That leaves time to pull real usage data, get comparative quotes, meet the notice deadline, and schedule installation without a gap in service.
We are happy to review an existing agreement from another provider and explain the end-of-term options in plain terms, including what your notice window requires. See copier leasing or call (786) 788-7098.
Many copier leases do renew automatically unless written notice is given inside a defined window before the end date. Check that clause early rather than in the final month.
Do not assume so. Copiers store document images on internal drives. Confirm in advance how the drive will be cleared or retained before the machine leaves your building.
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