What Do I Need To Do After Selling My Car?
Congratulations! You’ve finally found a buyer for your car. But what’s next?
Just as there are steps to follow before selling your car, there are also loose ends you need to tie up after selling the car. From the moment you’ve received payment and handed over the car, there are a few final steps that will help to protect you from any liabilities involving the car so you can enjoy your money in peace.
This guide will run you through what you need to do after selling your car, including what paperwork you should complete and what you need to do with your insurance.
Five Things You Should Do Before You Sell Your Car
Before we dive into what you should do after selling your car, let’s remind ourselves of what you need to do before selling your car. These tips will help you to ramp up the resale value of your car and get the best possible deal:
- Inspect the car
- Get car valuation
- Organize your paperwork
- Clean the car
- Compile the car’s service history
Read the complete guide on how to prepare your car for sale here.
After that, this guide will help you to sell your car safely.
Four Things to Do After Selling Your Car
Now that you’re up to date with how to prepare your car for sale and how to sell safely, let’s look at the steps you need to take after selling your car:
1. Do a final check and clear out the car
This is not only important to the buyer but also to yourself. The buyer deserves to receive a clean car that’s ready for use, and you also don’t want to lose your personal belongings. People often forget important things such as receipts and car chargers when selling their cars.
Ensure you look for personal items in the trunk, glove box, between the seats, and under the floor mats.
2. Make sure the ownership transfer is complete
It’s not enough to just confirm receipt of payment, shake hands, and hand over the keys to the car. You need to transfer ownership to the buyer. To do this, log onto your NTSA TIMS portal and begin the transfer over to the buyer. Once you have your side sorted, you’ll need to ask the buyer to log into their portal too, and accept the ownership transfer. Once complete, hand over the physical copy of the logbook to them. This is an important step; they will need this when collecting a new logbook from NTSA.
Until the vehicle ownership is transferred to the buyer, you will be held liable if the car is involved in an accident or any illegal activity. Always keep your copy of the sales agreement, even after you sell the car.
3. Cancel your insurance
Remember to tell your insurer that you no longer own the car. Promptly cancel your insurance cover for the car. While an insurance policy isn’t transferrable, you may be due a refund or you can reallocate the premium to a new policy for the car you’re buying next.
4. Remove your ad from classifieds
Lastly, you should also pull down any classifieds you had created to advertise the car to buyers. This includes online platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, Jiji, and your personal social media pages as well. You don’t want to be receiving messages and calls from interested buyers long after you’ve sold the car.
Need More Car Selling Tips?
Remember: collecting the money after someone buys your car isn’t the end of the selling process.
When dealing with a large sale such as a car, it’s easy to forget the little things such as canceling your insurance. You can use this article as a guide so you don’t forget anything important. You should also subscribe to our newsletter for more tips on how to sell your car.
