Demerits of Selling your Car to a Relative or Friend

You have decided to sell your car and started searching for a buyer. Then suddenly a relative or a close friend turns up and ask whether you are willing to sell the car to him or her. What would you say? Of course, this is a kind of blessing for most of us – now we need not to bother about advertising the car, prospecting buyers, calling them, coordinating for test-drives, and then negotiating for a final price. Instead what I get now is my relative or close friend who I know very well and he/she is willing to purchase my car. The situation seems perfectly alright and I should sell my car right away. If you also think along the same lines, then this piece of writing is something you should read very carefully. We promise at the end of the article, you will change your mind or at least become more considerate while taking the decision to sell your car to a relative or a friend.

1) Awkward Price Negotiations:

It is not possible for you to behave in a professional manner while negotiating on the price when you sell your car to somebody you know. There will be hesitation (rightly so) and negotiating on car’s actual condition becomes extremely difficult. Rather, the conversation will take a turn towards subjective things like “the strong emotional bond the person enjoys with your family”, “how close the person was to your late grandpa”, or “oh come on, now you are dealing with me in a professional manner”. This means even if your car is in good condition and deserves a better price, you might not get a good deal because of emotional talks that usually end up hijacking the discussions. The worst part is that you cannot argue much as your behavior has to remain within the confines of decency.

2) Issues in receiving payment:

If you think negotiating on the price is the hardest thing then you have to think again – getting the full payment upfront from a known person is even harder. Being a relative or friend, the person could possibly make the part-payment or provide the amount in installments. In such a scenario, you are not in a position to force him/her to pay the entire amount upfront. Further, the headache involved in chasing the person for the remaining amount is something we are sure you don’t want to bother yourself with. Not only it is painful but repeatedly asking for the payment from a relative or friend doesn’t seem nice at all.

3) Difficulty in ownership transfer

Transfer of the ownership is one of the most important tasks you have to accomplish once you have sold your car. There is a lot of paperwork involved and you require different types of forms to get your application processed by the Regional Transport Office (RTO). Completing all the legal formalities with someone who is closely related is not a normal thing to do. After all, you both trust each other and bringing legality in between the relationship is something both of you want to avoid. However, if you don’t get the ownership transfer done you will continue to remain the real owner of the car even if the car has been sold, making you vulnerable to all the legal and monetary consequences related to the vehicle. Your relative or friend, on the other hand, can’t claim to be a real owner until the registration certificate (RC) of the car has their name on it. In sum, both parties feel shortchanged in the process.

4) Ready to be pinned

It’s normal for a car to develop faults with the passage of time. Now if you have sold the car to somebody close to you, be ready to take the blame every time when something goes wrong with your car. We are not saying it is a serious matter and most of the time, the blame game is more humorous and light-hearted, but still, you can’t run away from the responsibility. The kind of closure you get when you sell your car in a professional manner is difficult to achieve in the case of selling it to a close relative or friend. The situation becomes even more awkward when you are yet to receive the full payment and in case of any cosmetic or mechanical fault, your right to ask for the remaining amount somewhat gets dissolved.

Also Read:- 10 Steps to Selling Your Car