If the lender is not local, you’ll need to bring the bill of sale on the car to your state Department of Motor Vehicles. You’ll want to obtain a temporary operating permit for the buyer. This will allow you to transfer the vehicle to the buyer, and then to deliver clear title to the buyer once the loan has been paid.
Obviously, you will not have the title until the loan is paid off in full, so there will be a delay of several days while that process is completed. You may have to pay a fee to your lender to expedite the title, a process that ordinarily takes several weeks. The risk of this delay will be a problem primarily for the buyer, since he or she will have a vehicle without having the legal title.
You can never afford to be casual about this part of the sales process! You are almost certainly selling the vehicle to a person you don’t know. This can include someone with less than honorable intentions, including someone who is fully prepared to commit outright fraud. Continue reading “Accept only cash or an official bank check”