selling a car for someone else – complicated!

my mums just moved to residential living in our village, previously with my bro in knaresborough.  shes brought her car with her obviously which is a PCP jobbie.

shes now decided she hasnt the confidence to drive around lincoln as she doesnt know it, so has decided to sell it.  she owes just over £15,000 on it (22 plate skoda kamiq, 18 months left on the PCP) and has been given quotes of around £18-19,000 from carwow and motorway.  the local skoda dealer says £16,000, the dealer she got it from ooop north offers £16,500.

the choice is either keep it for the 18 months and just bimble around in it locally, but that runs the risk of scratching/denting or worse, and the car losing its value.  plus the monthly payments of course, so the decision is to sell now.

my bro said he’d sell it for her if i take it back up to him, but we’re thinking of all the complications of her not being present for the sale, so i may have to help her do this here.  she almost certainly hasnt changed her address on her licence or V5 but insurance would have been taken out for new address.

think the general plan is to list on carwow/motorway, but if that price didnt materialise after a couple of weeks, then ok take it to the dealer and get the £16,500.

any further complications that you can think of?

thanks

My mum kindly lent me her car for a few months with the agreement that I’d take care of selling it for her when I was done needing it. I put it on auto trader, showed the person that my surname matched the one on the logbook, explained the situation and that was that.

I guess it did rely on them trusting me, but it worked out because I actually was being truthful. Not sure if that helps you reading it back but it’s my experience.

In your situation I’d go for the easiest option to clear the debt rather than faffing about trying to get a few hundred quid extra.

And selling privately is a faff. Also, people like to buy a car that new from a dealer so they have some peace of mind.

My mum kindly lent me her car for a few months with the agreement that I’d take care of selling it for her when I was done needing it.

yeah she’s offered that but too spendy really.  monthly payments are £200 i believe so either way one of us would need to keep paying that and its just not worth it for me, we’re into small nissan/bangernomics territory 😀

In your situation I’d go for the easiest option to clear the debt rather than faffing about trying to get a few hundred quid extra.

we’re starting to think this will be the best option.

thanks

Motorway all the way. If she decided she wanted something after all she could buy a runaround with the profit.

If it’s pcp are you sure it’s hers to sell? Do t you have to give it back? Genuinley not sure how they work.

If it’s pcp are you sure it’s hers to sell? Do t you have to give it back?

No – you just need to clear the finance. You can sell to anyone.

If it were leased you’d have to hand it back.

If it’s pcp are you sure it’s hers to sell? Do t you have to give it back?

never done it and confused by these type of things, theres PCP and another ‘3 letter’ jobbie that i get muddled with, but….. im assured its hers to sell and the skoda dealer she bought it from hasnt said differently when giving the quote.

Oh fair play. Didn’t know that.

“If it’s pcp are you sure it’s hers to sell? Do t you have to give it back?”

Need to check what the PCP deal says about surrendering early, and go from that. It’s not “her” car as I understand it.

If you haven’t already, get POA set up, these things will only become more onerous, sadly.

My mum just helped sell her BIL car to Motorway after his death.

Said it was all very straight forward and easy.

The last 3 cars I’ve sold the buyer has only given the logbook a cursory glance.

You fill out the change of ownership online anyway nowadays.

You’ll more likely get issues with the potential buyer believing you’ll pay off the finance when they give you money.

You’ll get the most by just paying off the finance for mum and selling it privately.

Otherwise motorway seems the best bet.

PCP isn’t yours to sell BUT the way Motorway works is the buyer pays the owner (the finance company) directly. It’s a loophole that works in the consumers favour as the penalties for ending a PCP deal early can be absolutely eye watering and not actually worth cancelling over.

I done this with Fil’s car. Due 14k finance. Got 14.5k via motorway. They cleared finance and sent rest to him via bank transfer. Relatively painless

PCP isn’t yours to sell

as i understand it, it is?  she could sell to absolutely anyone as long as finance is paid off?

It’s a loophole that works in the consumers favour as the penalties for ending a PCP deal early can be absolutely eye watering and not actually worth cancelling over.

ive double checked with bro and the figure she owes is the figure she owes, with no early resettlement fee.

just had word that evans halshaw have given a bigger quote (£17, 700 i think), its only 3 miles away from me so i believe its just make an appointment and if the cars as described thats what she should get.  at work for the next 5 days now but i’ll try and sort that for her towards the back end of next week.

thanks

“as i understand it, it is?”

Technically not, I did a lot of digging after my dad died and it’s owned by the finance company until such time as its paid in full. That’s why the payment has to be made directly to the finance company otherwise you end up with folk selling cars, pocketing the cash and having nothing to repossess when the finance company comes to repossess.

You’re mostly right though and it’s a technical detail you don’t need to get hung up on as you are doing it right anyway.

grrrrrrrr…….. just back from a hateful experience at evans halshaw.

theyd given mum a quote of £17,700 guaranteed til today.  was expecting them to knock a bit off just cos you know…. car salesmen and all that.  but after looking around it and admitting it was perfect order as described said he was ‘off to speak to the manager to get a price’.

“so the price isnt the price then?”

“thats the online quote, now ive had a look to verify it itll be there or thereabouts”

had a word with ma as to how low we’d accept before walking out but poor old mam couldnt understand why theyd knock anything off.  and to be fair shes got a point.

10 mins later he comes back and “we’ve compared the car to webuyanycar valuations and similar and the price we’ve come up with is £15,500 but tell you what we’ll give you £16,000 today”.

“yes but we’re not selling to webuyanycar we’re selling to you and youve given us a quote thats valid til today”

“thats just the online quote”

“so youve wasted our time coming in here rather than be honest in the first place and say the price we offer may be £2000 less than our online quote??”

i could go on describing the conversation but i thought nah youre going to have it mate, and raised my voice so all the other customers could here about them not honouring quotes and trying to con elderly ladies out of a few grand.  he couldnt really answer any of my questions and was just going red.

asked my mum what she’d have done if she was on her own and she said she’d have been a bit lost and probably just taken it and been livid afterwards, so im pleased i went with her.

still fuming now and its not even my car 😀

so…… i’ll have another read of the thread and look to motorway or autotrader or the like i think.  personally I just want the least hassle as i wouldnt choose to deal with car sales in the first place, but its my mum and i just want her to get the best price for it, so i feel i ought to put myself out if it gets her a grand or two.

‘kin car salesmen!

Motorway was very low hassle, the only hiccup was with Toyota Finance who tried to fob us off with waiting till the next day for payment to clear but we sat on the phone and got payment confirmation within half an hour or so. That wasn’t Motorways fault so not going to fault them for that.

she’s decided to list it on autotrader for a bit more wedge.   just wanted to ask a question please on something that i thought of to do with the finance.

in short, is there a benefit to settling it now from her savings and then paying it back in when sold?  i thought it might make the sale go more smoothly if that elements removed from the process?

the only down side i can think of is that if it takes a couple of weeks for a letter to come through then a potential buyer turning up in the meantime might not be happy at being told ‘yes ive paid it off but i cant prove it’, whereas if its done at point of sale they can see the transaction going through.

or could a quick check online show that its been settled before the written confirmation comes through?

am i missing anything here?   might this be a good idea?

thanks

Personally, I would not be inclined to spent £17k+ on a private sale with finance outstanding on the car. It would make me nervous. If I was spending that sort of money I would want to buy from a garage so I would have some bit of comeback if anything was wrong. I just traded in my car 2 weeks ago and am still waiting on a letter confirming its finance has been cleared, so it can take while for the paperwork, it might show online quicker though (I haven’t checked tbh).

when I was selling my Dads car for my mum after he died a couple of years ago I stuck it on auto trader for a week to see if there were any takers, and when there wasn’t I just WBAC’d it to save the hassle.

understood.  we’ve had a word with her and i think she’ll pay it off tomorrow.

thanks

right she’s paid it off now.  i assume itll take a bit of time to show as no finance.

is there any way of checking for free before the letter arrives in a couple of weeks or so confirming it?  so that any HPI checks would come back clear?  or is the only way to pay for one ourselves to check?

thanks

So long as you have proof the finance is clear and you state in the description that you have this and the date it was cleared on, no one will care that the HPI shows finance outstanding.

Motorway, CarWow and others messed me a bout quite a bit recently with our car.  WBAC were, in stark contrast, very upfront and their eventual on the spot valuation was writhing £200 of the online quote which was highest.

I’ve sold all my recent cars via eBay.  From £2000-£25000, they’ve all sold via eBay.

And now get the v5 and driving license address details updated.

just about to sell this to a trader and theyve asked for……

V5 – All pages

ID – drivers licence

Service records

2 keys – image showing 2 keys

Finance settlement including payment details for finance company, when you have it

Bank details for us to pay you (must match the name on V5)

i just have a little niggle tho that i read somewhere that you shouldnt send someone all the info on a V5 as they could mebbes do naughty things with it.

what you reckon, all above board?

ta

If I was buying a car, I’d want to see all that…

yeah i get that definitely, just wasnt sure about emailing pics of every detail of a V5.  just the same as id be wary if someone came to see it and wanted to take pictures of the V5 and then said no thanks ill leave it.

am i just being paranoid? :-). they couldnt just ‘apply for a new V5’ with this information and con someone else?

thanks

a quick google suggests im right to be wary?

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1774252

I think you just need to cover up the V5 ID Code thing in the top corner?

Without the ID code I think the only thing you can do is claim you have lost the V5 and request a new V5 sent out to the address already listed on the V5.

But with the ID code I think you can do a lot more like change address or ownership etc …

So I would send them a photo but have the ID code covered up or blanked out.

Just got to WBAC and take the hit!!!

Unless you thrive on stress? 🙂

Motorway worked really well for my mum selling her car at a similar value recently.

Dealers will understand this type of situation.

Just got to WBAC and take the hit!!!

Why would you do this when Motorway can do the same thing for more money and probably less stress?

looks like we’re selling it today, so just want to make sure i dont forget anything thatll make life difficult for ma later down the line.

are written receipts still needed?  so he says i bought this car from mrs x on todays date, for £xxx, sold as seen?

and we just have to hand over the small cut off green slip from the V5, thats it?

and obviously wait for the money to arrive in her bank before handing over the keys 😀

The AA has a downloadable selling receipt thing to maximise your protection, see:

https://www.theaa.com/car-buying/how-to-sell-a-car

I handwrite a receipt and do the V5 thing with them.

Also cancel insurance ASAP and tell them you have sold.

Do the v5 change over on line, then it can be changed over before they drive off – it also forces them to tax it.

thanks @BadlyWiredDog printed that out and asked them to sign, but i got the feeling it wasnt really needed anyway as they just filled in everything anyway.

cancelled insurance and tax, i assume doing the dvla thing online means we dont need to send the little slip from from the V5 off yep?

thanks for your help

Correct, no need to post the v5 if you did it online.