Inception and commencement of Lease Business

[Yakub02]

Inception date of the lease The earlier of the date of a lease agreement and the date of commitment by the parties to the principal terms and conditions of the lease.

This is where the parties to the lease contract commit to the terms of the contract.  Contracts must be assessed at the inception date to find out if they are a lease or if they contain a lease.  A lessor must identify the type of lease in a contract (finance or operating) at the date of inception.

: Commencement date of a lease The date on which a lessor makes an underlying asset available for use by a lessee.

This is the date that a lessee starts to use the asset or, at least, is entitled to start to use the asset. The accounting treatment required is applied to a lease at the commencement date.

It is usually straight forward to identify a leasing contract. However, some contracts might not have the legal form of a lease but still might convey a right to use an asset in return for a payment or series of payments.

Such contracts (either in whole or in part) are subject to the rules in IFRS 16. Examples of such contracts might include:

 certain outsourcing arrangements;

 arrangements in the telecommunications industry where suppliers of network capacity sell rights to capacity