Co-Sponsorship Memo Details

Please consider joining me in sponsoring legislation to amend the Rental-Purchase Agreement Act to make more transparent the price at which a consumer can exercise his or her contractual right to purchase the property being rented.
Under current law, the price at which a consumer can exercise the right to purchase rented property under a rental-purchase agreement is subject to a confusing statutory formula of “an amount equal at a maximum to the amount by which the cash price of the leased property exceeds 50% of all rental payments made by the lessee.”  Further, the term “cash price” is defined by statute as “the price at which the lessor would offer to sell in the ordinary course of business the same or similar property for cash on the day the lessee enters into a rental-purchase agreement.”  Consumers can hardly be expected to decipher what these statutory requirements mean, and the rental-purchase agreements themselves do not further elaborate on the actual price that must be paid by the consumer to purchase.
My bill will amend the Rental-Purchase Agreement Act to make the purchase price a simple matter of contract between the parties.  My bill will require that the contract set forth the actual formula or method by which the purchase price is to be calculated, and importantly, my bill will also require that the agreement be accompanied by a straightforward chart showing the dollar amount required to exercise the option to purchase the rented property after each rental payment if rental payments are made as scheduled. 
I hope you will join me in sponsoring this legislation to promote simplicity and transparency in rental-purchase agreements.