Rent-to-Own Industry Again Pursues Federal Law
LAS VEGAS -- The rent-to-own (RTO) industry is pursuing a 2-pronged federal legislative attack as it tries to gain long-sought Congressional approval of a bill reclassifying rental contracts from credit agreements to leases, executives told us at the Assn. of Progressive Rental Organizations (APRO) show here.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Although it backs the far-reaching HR-1651 -- Consumer Rental Purchase Agreement Act of 2005 -- calling for full disclosure of rental pricing, APRO also is considering a narrower approach. That would involve having rental contracts defined as leases in a larger piece of legislation that emerges from the Senate Commerce or Banking Committee, APRO Pres. Shannon Strunk said. The so-called “definition bill” appeals to many rental dealers, many of whom remember a year ago when legislation requiring full disclosure gained House passage, but stalled in the Senate Banking Committee.
The group’s lobbying was thrown into turmoil last fall when its 2 largest members -- RentWay and Rent-a- Center -- left the group, forcing it to scale back legislative efforts. In the spring, APRO raised about $70,000, hired a lobbyist and since has resumed pursuit of federal legislation. HR-1651 has support from 27 House co-sponsors. The Senate version of the Act -- S603 -- has 15 co-sponsors. Among other elements, the bills would mandate disclosure of whether a rental product is new or used and its full price, including fees, if a contract runs to term. Congressional support is lower for the current bill than last year’s HR-996, which had 96 House co-sponsors.
Some RTO dealers, after years of seeking federal rental legislation, want to attach the lease definition to another bill. “You are never going to see a standalone RTO law and it will never go through by itself,” said John Cleek, pres. of Cleek’s Rent-To-Own and co-chmn. of APRO’s political action committee, which raised $101,000. “If we got the definition bill, a whole lot of us would not go looking for the other bill.”