selling cars as a private seller

richardw

Batchy wrote: »

if its your own car and you swap it regularly, then its not a problem

BUT increases the chances of getting a bad car and losing money.
Not really sure that it is worth all the hassle.

Perhaps a saucy website would be more succesful to make a little extra.

ballyclover

cars i buy would be in my own name.

And who is to say i changed my mind over the purchase and sold it, 6 times a year excessive i know, but still who is to prove it and who is to say i made a profit.
i apprecaite all the help and seems not as straight forward as i had hoped

richardw

ballyclover wrote: »

who is to say i made a profit

They are called www.hmrc.gov.uk
There are two things inescapeable in life, death and taxes.

CFC

ballyclover wrote: »

cars i buy would be in my own name.

And who is to say i changed my mind over the purchase and sold it, 6 times a year excessive i know, but still who is to prove it and who is to say i made a profit.
i apprecaite all the help and seems not as straight forward as i had hoped

You are likely to get noticed by the place you advertise and they will classify you as a trader, unless you are just using a noticeboard somewhere. Please be very careful, you may be in a situation where you have to prove you are NOT a trader - you are going around it in the wrong way by thinking that governmental agencies and Trading Standards have to prove you ARE a trader. It can get even more complex, if you sold a dud and the private buyer saw you continually advertising cars, TS may come and pay you a visit. Seeking to remove a consumer's legal rights is now a criminal offence; so theoretically you could be charged with this if they took the view you are not identifying yourself as a trader simply to avoid consumer rights legislation - that's apart from HMRC. This really isn't as straightforward as you might think.

pianeet

ballyclover wrote: »

cars i buy would be in my own name.

And who is to say i changed my mind over the purchase and sold it, 6 times a year excessive i know, but still who is to prove it and who is to say i made a profit.
i apprecaite all the help and seems not as straight forward as i had hoped

To be honest,that is exactly how i started 20 years ago,but i found it not worth it about 3 years ago ,and that was with getting cars written back to basically nothing from my brothers garage,i still find the occasional gem mainly camper vans(never yet made less than £1500 profit) but there is such a shortage of decent 2nd hand cars you do not seem to get them dirt cheap anymore.

JonathanA

Best advice. If you're going to do this, do it properly. You can trade part time - I do. But I have traders insurance, business insurance and any profit I make I pay tax etc on, and people who buy my cars know that I trade in them. The margins aren't brilliant at the moment, and everyone wants a discount, but there are still deals to be done. It isn't worth the aggro of not doing it properly in my view.

You may not believe you are a real trader, but by buying cars to sell for a profit, you are - and on that basis you may as well do it properly.

Good luck.

motorguy

david69 wrote: »

I would be careful buying from auctions unless you know what your looking for but this is where you can make your money.

Its really not anymore. Its full of car salesmen who have been made redundant trying to do it from home, and a whole host of other small time traders.

motorguy

ballyclover wrote: »

cars i buy would be in my own name.

And who is to say i changed my mind over the purchase and sold it, 6 times a year excessive i know, but still who is to prove it and who is to say i made a profit.
i apprecaite all the help and seems not as straight forward as i had hoped

The wonderful thing about Mr Taxman is that he doesnt have to *prove* anything. He can tax you on what he *thinks* you've earnt. Which will be some large number hes pulled out the air to make taxing you worthwhile.

motorguy

pianeet wrote: »

To be honest,that is exactly how i started 20 years ago,but i found it not worth it about 3 years ago ,and that was with getting cars written back to basically nothing from my brothers garage,i still find the occasional gem mainly camper vans(never yet made less than £1500 profit) but there is such a shortage of decent 2nd hand cars you do not seem to get them dirt cheap anymore.

Similar to my expreience too. I started about 20 years ago and was an underwriter for a local large dealer where i'd previously worked. Basically anything that was worth less than £1000 then i underwrote the deal. As long as the customer was happy (and in those days they'd extra money on the sticker price to make the trade in price look better) then they were happy. I made about £300 a car on average for years. I'd a ring of other traders who bought from me too and i'd take a quick turn. Then it started to drop, eventually i was struggling to make £50 a car and it became far too much hassle.

A friend of mine does camper vans. Will travel the length of the country to buy one. He knows his stuff though and has a friend who will fit a proper cooker to them, which seems to increase the value a fair bit.

I always talk about going back to it - but nows a real bad time.

blue_haddock

ballyclover wrote: »

Hi



I dont believe i am a real trader

But you definately are. If you buy something with the sole intention of selling it on then by definition you are trading which means cars need things like warranties, you need to pay tax on any profits and you need to be insured.

Just because you think you can get away with it what happens if say maybe a neighbour doesn't like his neighbours drive looking like a car forecourt and his street being used for test drives? What if he reports you and the tax man comes knocking?