Accounting and Finance for Lawyers

A capital lease reports leased property as an asset and the payment obligations as a liability on its balance sheet.

This is not ideal as it makes one's debt ratio bigger.

Under GAAP, a lease must be reported as a capital lease if one of the following conditions is met:

The lessee gets ownership at the end of the lease term.
The lessee has the right to purchase the property for a "bargain price"—one dramatically below any possible sense of the asset's market value.
The lease covers at least 75% of the property's useful life.
The lease payments amount to at least 90% of the fair market value of the property.