niveknow
Member
One 1, they are expecting you to deposit your Federal Tax Credit (26%) before the 18 month mark in order to keep the lower monthly payment. But if there is any accrued interest in your account prior to that deposit, a portion of it will go to interest instead of all principal.
On 2, there's no early payoff penalty, and it says that any additional payments made after month 18 will shorten the payoff period. So there's no reason why you couldn't pay it off early.
Thanks for the clarification @BrettS , this is only my second large loan after my mortgage, so it's a bit difficult getting to grips with all of the terms. They do seem to be a little sneaky by starting the loan on the installation date, and then not requiring your first payment until 3 months after that date. So they do want the loan to accrue a little bit of interest before you can pay down any of the principal.
It sounds like the right place to make any large lump sum outside of the initial down payment is at the pre-18th month mark. You have the option to put in your tax credit plus more to lower the total cost of the loan. effectively getting you a semi-loan period to that pre-18th month mark to do something else with the capital such as other investments. Of course you'll be paying interested leading to this point.