Private sale or part-exchange, what each is realistically worth, and the paperwork you have to get right when the car changes hands.
Almost every question about selling comes down to one trade-off. Selling privately usually pays more, while part-exchanging is faster and much less hassle. The gap between them is smaller than people assume, once you count your own time.
Which suits you depends on the car more than on you. Part-exchange against private sale walks through where the difference is worth having. Cheap, older and high-mileage cars tend to close that gap, while clean and desirable ones widen it.
If you go private, our step-by-step guide covers writing an advert that pre-empts the obvious questions. It also covers handling viewings safely, and taking payment in a way that clears before the car leaves. Payment is where private sellers get hurt. Haste is usually why.
The paperwork is the part people get wrong, and it carries legal weight. Telling DVLA the car is sold is your duty, not the buyer's. Doing it late is its own problem, whatever the buyer does next. The paperwork when selling lists every document that has to change hands.
One thing is worth knowing before you advertise. A private seller isn't held to a dealer's standard on quality. You are held to your own description, and that's a lower bar to trip over than most people expect. A car described accurately is much harder to complain about later.
Our complete guide to selling pulls the sequence together in one place.
Sell your own car and you usually walk away with more than a trade-in pays you. The trade-off is that the vetting, the payment and the paperwork are all yours. Do it in the right order, know the scams, and know what you are still liable for once the buyer drives away.
11 minOnly one piece of paperwork is legally yours to deal with when you sell a car in the UK: telling DVLA you are no longer the keeper. The MOT certificate, the service history, a written receipt? All worth having. None of them required by law.
9 minThe gap between selling privately and part-exchanging is much smaller than the figures repeated across the internet. On some cars it even runs the other way. One properly sourced comparison exists, and this is what it found.
8 minReady to sell but unsure which route to take? Private sale, part-exchange, an instant-buy service and auction all pay differently, and they cost you different amounts of hassle. This guide covers what each one realistically gets you, the paperwork DVLA actually requires, and what the law says you must tell a buyer.
13 min