10 Tips To Limit Risk When Selling Your Car

If you have been considering selling your car privately in Ireland, you’ve probably already started to think about the key elements of what you need to do to sell your car for cash, how to go about preparing your vehicle, what price to value the car at and devising the perfect advertising text to get lots of interest.

Aside from all the preparations that you need to consider, you also need to be conscious of some of the risks that are associated with privately selling a car. Be careful and ensure you use a safe way to sell a car.

Have you thought about how to safely sell a used car? If not, before you take the steps to start advertising your vehicle, you should make yourself aware of all the potential pitfalls that you could encounter.

The following guide has been put together to show you how to sell a car for cash safely, and provides you with tips to limit risk. The sole purpose is to leave you feeling satisfied when the process is complete. These ten safe tips for secure car sales cover a spectrum of potential threats and by making yourself aware of the issues, the hope is that you don’t fall foul of scam artists and time wasters.

The Top Car Sales Safety Tips

1. What To Look Out For Before You Advertise Your Car

Before you take the step of advertising your car for sale, it is advisable that you do your homework first to ensure you are fully aware of what is required to sell your car privately. You’ll need to know what costs you would need to pay when advertising or selling through an auction website.

2. Make Sure The Car Is Roadworthy

The last thing you will want to happen when you sell a used car privately, is for something to go wrong and the new owner ends up demanding to return the car and get their money back. Although the vehicle might be sold as seen, if something major goes wrong the new owner could take you to court if the issue is longstanding.

3. Be Honest

Save yourself from future issues after a sale is completed privately by being absolutely honest and truthful about the vehicle. If not, this could lead to serious legal situations after the sale.

4. Protect Your Identity

Be safe and limit risk by not give away any personal information and if necessary remove the registration plate details of your car if taking photographs to be uploaded to websites. Don’t take the risk of having your identity compromised by fake buyers.

5. Be Prepared For Lots Of Phone Calls & Messages

Once you’ve posted your advert, be prepared to receive lots of messages and phone calls from people interested in your car. Make sure you find out as much information as possible from each caller before giving out too much information. You want to sure that you are not about to be scammed. Therefore, ask for the caller’s name, telephone number and find out where they are from. If they don’t want to give out the details, then refuse to deal with them.

6. Learn How To Spot A Scam.

With the increasing risks of scams affecting society, it’s to be expected that someone will try and scam you. Therefore, be extra vigilant when selling a used car privately that you are not being scammed. This could mean that you not only lose the car, but you’ll be out of pocket too.

7. Test Drives

If someone wants to inspect the car and take it for a test drive, it’s obvious, to avoid any issues, that you should accompany the person on the test drive. Decline any requests from buyers asking to take the car alone and prevent the risk of the car being stolen.

8. Managing The Payment Process.

Make sure to handle the payment process in the right way. Limit risk and ask for a deposit payment in cash to ensure the buyer is not going to waste your time. If they want to pay by bank transfer or cash make sure the funds are in your account before you hand over the keys. The same applies if the payment is by cheque, or banker’s draft. Don’t let the buyer take the car until you know the funds are in your account. Alternatively use a safe online money transfer provider, where the funds are protected.

9. Transfer Of Ownership Paperwork

When completing a sale privately, ensure that you safely take care of the change of ownership paperwork to make sure this is handled correctly and you can demonstrate that you have taken the necessary steps to cease liability for the vehicle.

10. If You Don’t Want The Hassle

If after reading everything above, you decide that you’d rather not have these worries, another tip would be to sell your vehicle to a safe and regulated car buying service who will legitimately buy the car from you.

How To Limit Risk When Selling A Car

It’s important to protect yourself and be careful that goes without saying. This guide identifies some of the issues you may face and will help you limit risk to yourself.

Be aware that when you choose to privately sell a used car, the process can be fraught with issues and the tips above are there to provide you with the tools to navigate your way through without any stress and hassle.

If you have decided that it’s the right way, the next stage is to prepare your car for selling it privately.