1. who do you want to sell your car to?
The first thing to decide is whether to sell your car to a private seller or to a dealer. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.
- Sellingto private individuals: Here you usually get the higher sales price, at least for cheap vehicles. Cheap cars are often bought by private buyers, so there is a lot of demand for your car.
On the other hand, you often have to put up with a nerve-wracking sales process and answer many written and telephone inquiries. You have to meet with unknown groups of buyers and let them test drive your car.
Another big problem is the method of payment, especially if your car is still financed. With financed cars, the buyer does not receive a letter at first, so they have to be prepared to take a risk.
Finally, the car usually has to be handed over registered and you have to trust the buyer to deregister it quickly.
I have prepared a sample purchase contract for you, so you can minimize the risks as much as possible: Sample purchase agreement
- Sellingto dealers: Here it depends on whether you are selling an inexpensive or a rather high-quality car.
With inexpensive cars, dealers have to bear a high warranty risk in addition to their margin, which significantly depresses the price.
The warranty risk is lower with high-quality cars. In addition, demand is higher from dealers, expensive cars are usually bought from dealers, private sellers are avoided - this increases demand and the price.
Regardless of the price, the biggest advantage of selling to dealers is the processing. The dealer usually takes care of the paperwork and also buys financed cars without any problems. With reputable dealerships, payment is made by real-time bank transfer on delivery and cars can also be deregistered thanks to dealer license plates. As car dealerships are inspected by various supervisory authorities as "dealers of high-quality goods", the overall level of security is higher compared to a private seller.
If you sell to a dealer, you don't have to do anything else; your dealer will take care of all the following steps. The following is purely about your self-organized sale to a private individual.
2. preparation of a sale to private individuals
- Compile the equipment: Ideally, you will have a list of equipment from your seller, which you can check and use.
Alternatively, with many modern cars you can also call up the equipment on the manufacturer's website or app. You can register your car with the chassis number and have the data displayed.
The last option is to contact a manufacturer's workshop. Depending on the employee's state of mind, they may be willing to create and send you the equipment list.
- Valuing a vehicle: Forget lists from Schwacke or DAT, forget valuation reports - they are all inaccurate, out of date and not meaningful and were relevant before the internet. Today, the price of a car is determined by the actual market.
The best place to go is www.mobile.de or www.autoscout24.de, with the former having the most offers. Look for comparable cars offered by other private sellers; you should not base the value on offers from car dealerships, the buyer groups are too different.
Important criteria for comparison are the exact model, first registration, mileage, color combination and equipment.
Don't forget to set the filters to private sellers and Germany.
Now you can see where the masses of comparable vehicles are. You can ignore prices that deviate sharply downwards or upwards. In the case of conspicuously cheap offers, there are usually inconsistencies, such as a "strange" seller or an opaque vehicle history. Very expensive offers are usually from private individuals who don't really want to sell but are hoping in vain that "some fool might come forward".
As I said, the important thing is where the masses are, that's where you price your car.
- Reconditioning: The car should be completely cleaned and reconditioned inside and out. A clean car is a very important criterion, especially for high-priced vehicles.
Nobody wants to pay a lot of money for a dirty car, so make sure you take care of it.
- Photos: You can take photos with a modern smartphone, that's enough. I recommend a front and rear view from the outside, a view from the front and rear at an angle and one from both sides. Inside, you should take a photo of the front and rear, the steering wheel view and the center console. A photo of the boot and engine compartment won't hurt either.
Make sure that all photos are well exposed. Good photos are very important when selling on the Internet.
- Create ads: You can create ads for free at www.mobile.de or www.autoscout24.de. Enter everything you have collected in the previous steps here.
Be sure to include your phone number. Phone calls can be annoying, I know, but most buyers don't want to write emails and ignore ads without a number directly.
3. preliminary negotiation
In other words, hell. You'll get a lot of phone calls and e-mails at the most impossible times - people don't care about anything here.
You will always have to answer the same questions and send many documents such as service reports, registration certificates and additional photos.
You will negotiate with every interested party anew and at great expense.
To get a good price you have to be patient, remember you are the seller, you want the money. It's a lot of work but it's all part of it. After all, there is a lot of money at stake and you have to understand the buyers. Nobody likes to buy a pig in a poke and negotiating is normal with private sellers.
If you are patient and treat your prospective customers well, you should be able to arrange a viewing or test drive appointment.
4th viewing appointment
- Test drive: A test drive is usually unavoidable, buyers want to test the car. Unfortunately, risks cannot be avoided here, and your insurance company is liable in the event of an accident. Agreements that exempt your insurance company from liability and impose damages on the test driver are ineffective in the event of an accident.
You can only protect yourself from a few liability risks - provided, of course, that the potential buyer is willing or able to pay.
I have prepared a sample test drive agreement to help you with this: DOWNLOAD TEST DRIVE AGREEMENT
5. purchase agreement
- Purchase agreement: You can create your own purchase agreement or use a sample from one of the well-known platforms or the ADAC.
I have also created a sample purchase agreement for you here: Sample purchase agreement
- Payment: Here it depends on whether you have the vehicle registration document or not.
If you have the document, it's relatively simple. It's best to arrange payment by real-time bank transfer. The buyer can then pay on the spot at the handover and receives the documents, keys and the vehicle directly.
If you don't have the letter and it's at the bank, it's more difficult. Ultimately, you don't want to hand over your car without payment, but on the other hand, the buyer doesn't want to pay without receiving the letter.
So one of you will have to give the other side the benefit of the doubt. I recommend that you convince the buyer to transfer the purchase price to you and take all the documents, keys and the vehicle with you. You then pay off the financing quickly and send the letter to the buyer.
Alternatively, there is also a safer option for the buyer, but it means more work for you.
First ask your bank for the outstanding transfer amount. Then you authorize the buyer in writing to pay the redemption amount and to take receipt of the vehicle title deposited as security. You send this authorization to your bank in advance so that it is deposited.
On the day of handover, the buyer transfers the redemption amount to your bank in front of you and the remaining amount to you, or if the redemption amount is greater than the sales price, you transfer the remaining amount to the bank. The buyer takes over the vehicle directly, including all documents, and receives the vehicle registration document from the bank after a few days thanks to the power of attorney you have deposited.
I have prepared a sample power of attorney for the redemption here which, in my experience, is accepted by most banks: Sample power of attorney
6. handover
You should hand over the vehicle together with all documents and keys at the same time as payment is made.
You are now asking yourself whether you should hand over your vehicle registered or deregistered. Difficult decision, if the vehicle is still financed and the buyer has to wait for the letter, you could hand over the vehicle registered as a mutual leap of faith.
However, if the buyer has already received all the documents, including the vehicle registration document, you should deregister your car before handing it over to be on the safe side - that way the matter is settled for both parties. The buyer must then transfer the car with short-term license plates or, if it is a dealer, with dealer license plates or on a trailer.
If you have deregistered your car and the prospective buyer does not show up, you can easily re-register the car. The cost of registering the car in the same owner's name is just a few euros.
7. conclusion
For people who have the time to put in the work and are prepared to take a certain amount of risk, selling your car independently is a good alternative. Especially if you are selling a low-priced car, the risk is manageable and the benefit you get from the higher sale price is worth it.
For high-priced vehicles, on the other hand, I cannot recommend an independent sale. The number of private buyers who are actually prepared to buy a high-priced car privately is very small. As a result, the achievable price is often lower than or equal to the dealer purchase price. At the same time, the expense and risk in the event of damage or fraud is considerably higher. All in all, there is practically no financial advantage here, but a high financial risk.
Personally, I have found that there are only three customer groups in the buyer's market for high-priced vehicles sold privately: Dealers, dealers posing as private individuals and private individuals who know their way around and are willing to buy a vehicle from a private party if the seller is offering a bargain
