Out of State Car Sale Question

[Flyin96M]

OK it looks like I have a buyer of the E30, but they are in York, PA. He said he will probably just have it shipped so there is a good chance I will never meet him face to face. Anyone have any advise on handling out of state sales?

[sammm]

Make sure payment clears before you put the car on a transport.

http://www.txdmv.gov/vehicles/titles/faq.htm

[Flyin96M]

Wooden nickles are still acceptable right?

Thanks for the link, but I didn't see anything for out of state sales. Keeping the plates is a good idea and so is the vehicle transfer notification.

[sammm]

Now that I think about it, one of the Miata's I sold went to Iowa. I don't remember having to do anything special. Just send the new owner the signed title and have him sign a bill of sale.

[Rob®]

From being in that situation both ways (only buying from PA to register in NJ and NY):
- obviously wait till the payment clears.
- be sure to include an invoice/bill of sale/receipt/whatever you want to call it for the buyer's sake, especially if you're selling it for a good price (or just want to help the guy out with saying you sold it for less so he pays less tax). Back when I bought a project car from someone in PA for less than FMV, I had to get all kinds of crap completed from the seller so I would only pay tax on the amount I paid. If you put that you sold it for a really good price, noting the car "is in need of repair" on the paper is a good idea as well. I was told that when I registered said project car, that having that on the bill of sale would have prevented all my headaches with not paying nearly 4 times as much tax on the car.

Oh, depending on how valuable the car is to him, tell him to consider shipping it via FedEx. The price isn't actually much more than other car shippers, but from what I've heard from a few people, they seem to be by far the most professional. The extra money it'd cost for a beater Miata wouldn't be worth it, but if this E30 is super mint and he wants to keep it that way, it might be worth looking into.

[OZMDD]

There are escrow services for complex transactions. If your deal is fairly simple, the risk is all on the buyers end, assuming you have verifiable funds and don't release the vehicle until funds have cleared. A Paypal transaction woudl work but cost you some $$. The ideal situation IMHO would be to have him bring the payment to a branch of your bank in their town and then let the bank handle the signatures. I had BOA deal with an out-of-state deal a few times, and they were helpful. I did speak to my local branch manager first, who i try to say "hi" to in person once every month or two, which definitely helped.

[Flyin96M]

Thanks for all the advise guys, but it sounds like the buyer is planning to make a trip down so that should simplify things a bit. I have requested a deposit via PayPal to hold the car until then.

[miataspeedracer]

Congrats on the quick sale!

[Flyin96M]

Yeah I thought it would have taken at least a month, but I think the CarDomain page I made really helped. I had the most serious offers from the ad I had on the BMW Car Club website. The only problem with the quick sale is that I still need to find a way to carry my bike with the GTR.