Selling a car and offering finance

[mike n helen]

I have my car advertised here on PistonHeads for £17K (Volvo C30 T5 if anybody is interested), but what you keep hearing in the news is that the majority of car sales are on some sort of finance or PCP which an individual can not offer.

To most people £17K is a lot of money and are likely to want to finance the car. Selling privately you are at a disadvantage to a garage when they can offer finance to customer walking through the door, making the purchase an easy one. I've looked at a few finance brokers web sites to see if there is anybody out there who is able to offer a finance offer to an individual who is selling a car but most of them only deal with dealers. I would like to able add the words in my advert "Finance available" to see if it attracts more buyers.

Does anybody know if such a service/company exists?

Thanks, Mike

[Little Lofty]

Oracle offer finance to private buyers, there are a few T&C's and minimum sums involved but it might be worth giving them a call.

[Maxf]

At 17k its still well within unsecured personal loan territory, so I wouldnt worry too much - thats how a lot of private buyers would fund.

[rfoster]

I can offer finance for cars that are being sold privately (we take the role of the dealer in this instance) - but you certainly cannot advertise that 'finance is available' in your advert without having your own consumer credit licence I'm afraid.

[mike n helen]

rfoster said:

I can offer finance for cars that are being sold privately (we take the role of the dealer in this instance) - but you certainly cannot advertise that 'finance is available' in your advert without having your own consumer credit licence I'm afraid.

I thought there would be some legal reason why I couldn't just say "Finance available". What wording could I use then to attract a potential buyer and then point them in your direction, maybe even have the necessary forms to hand to pass on to them? Could I say something like " Finance arrangement help possible" that way I'm not selling it just pointing them in your direction, or even "Finance possible via Meridian Finance" ?

[Kudos]

mike n helen said:

I thought there would be some legal reason why I couldn't just say "Finance available". What wording could I use then to attract a potential buyer and then point them in your direction, maybe even have the necessary forms to hand to pass on to them? Could I say something like " Finance arrangement help possible" that way I'm not selling it just pointing them in your direction, or even "Finance possible via Meridian Finance" ?

No, don't do it. Fairly sure you'll need a consumer credit license which will cost you money. As stated, £17k isn't a huge amount of money and can be covered by loan.

If I saw an ad for a car offering this I'd say they were a dealer or a scam of some type

[rfoster]

Yeah as above - sadly you can't mention finance at all without a consumer credit licence. Sorry!

[P-Jay]

There's nothing stopping you putting a potential buyer in touch with a finance co as part of sale, they're be taking care of the paperwork and sales process so you don't need a CCL.

However where you may fall down is that most, if not all finance companies won't take a charge on a privately sold car.

Such to the vagaries of HP / Lease deals (where the lender has charge over the vehicle) legally the finance company supply the vehicle to the customer, if it goes wrong they're liable and they have no recourse back to the private seller as selling cars isn't the 'normal course of your business' so you can't be expected to stump up if the gearbox dies 2 months later.

Ultimately though, if you list "finance available" you're just going to come across as either a dealer, or a dealer selling a car privately rather than through their business - this usually happens when it's a complete pup.