Equipment Finance for the Gear That Earns

A chattel mortgage means your business owns the equipment from the start and the lender registers security over it. For a GST-registered business the GST on the purchase is generally claimable up front, and interest and depreciation follow the business-use portion.

A finance lease means the lender owns it and you pay for the use, with an option at the end. A rental keeps it off your balance sheet and you hand it back.

If you will still be using the machine in ten years, ownership usually wins. If you replace gear on a cycle, a structure that hands it back cleanly can be the better fit.

A dealer purchase is the simplest for a lender to fund. Invoice, warranty, clean history.

A private sale takes more work. The lender will usually want an inspection or valuation, and not every lender funds them at all.

Auctions are where deals live and where finance goes wrong. You have a short settlement window and no ability to negotiate it. Get approved before the hammer drops, not after, or you are funding it on a card while you wait.

Hours on the clock usually tell a lender more than the build year. A low-hour ten-year-old machine can price better than a thrashed five-year-old one.

Most lenders have a limit on how old an asset can be at the end of the term, not the start. That is what quietly shortens the term available on older gear.

Specialised equipment narrows the panel further, because fewer lenders are confident they could resell it. That is exactly the situation where going to the right lender first matters.

Full doc means financials and tax returns, and generally buys you the best rate and the highest limits.

Low doc works off your ABN, GST registration and bank statements. It is quicker and much easier if your financials are not current.

On asset-backed lending the gap between the two is often smaller than people assume, because the equipment is doing a lot of the reassuring.

A balloon or residual is a lump sum left at the end of the term. It drops the repayment now, which is why it gets offered so readily.

You are still paying interest on the full amount the whole way through, so the facility costs more overall. And the lump falls due whether or not the machine is still earning.

They earn their keep when you intend to trade or refinance the asset at the end. They are a poor fit for gear you plan to run into the ground.

Buckets, hammers, hitches, a float to move it, delivery and commissioning can usually go into the same facility rather than onto a card at a much worse rate.

Lenders differ on how much of the total they will let be non-core, so it pays to list everything up front rather than adding items after approval.

Getting it all in one facility also means one repayment and one payout figure, which makes the gear far easier to sell or refinance later.