Selling a car privately in the UK

To sell a car privately in the UK, give the buyer the green “new keeper” slip from the log book (V5C), tell DVLA you have sold the car and give them the buyer’s full name and address.^[1][2] DVLA then cancels your vehicle tax and refunds any full months left; the tax does not pass to the buyer.^[2][3] Trading Standards advice is to keep the car, keys and paperwork until the money has cleared in your bank account.^[8]

Every rule below links to the official page it comes from, numbered in the sources at the foot of the page, with the day it was read (15 October 2026). This is general information, not legal advice. It covers selling your own car as a private individual; a business selling cars follows other rules.

The steps, in order

1. 1. Check your log book (V5C) details

   If you have changed your name or address, or made changes to the car, apply to update the log book before you sell. GOV.UK warns that you may not get a refund for any full months left on your vehicle tax if your details are incorrect.^[1] You can show buyers the log book so they can check that its details match the car, but GOV.UK says not to share its document reference number or pictures or copies of it: someone could use them to get a fraudulent copy, putting the car at risk of being stolen or cloned.^[1] If the car has a private (personalised) number plate you want to keep, you must apply to remove it before you sell.^[1]

2. 2. Have what a buyer will ask for ready

   GOV.UK tells a buyer to ask the seller for the registration number, make and model and MOT test number, to check them against DVLA’s records, the MOT history and any safety recall, and at the viewing to ask to see the V5C and check that the vehicle identification number and engine number match it.^[4] A car’s MOT history can be checked on GOV.UK with its number plate, so what a buyer finds should match what you say.^[6] Our free registration check shows tax, MOT status, DVSA test history and recalls for one registration, so you can look at the same things before you list.

3. 3. Price it, then describe the car as it is

   Pricing is covered below. On the description: under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 a sale by description carries an implied term that the goods will correspond with the description, so the advert should say what the car is.^[11]

4. 4. Viewings and test drives

   Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards team advises private sellers to show the car from their home address or a busy place they know well, to have all the vehicle documents ready, to avoid showing the car on their own where possible, and, if a buyer wants a test drive, to make sure they are insured to drive it and never let them take it out unaccompanied.^[8] Two rules from GOV.UK sit behind that. You must have motor insurance to drive on UK roads.^[7] And you cannot drive or park a vehicle on the road if its MOT has run out: GOV.UK lists two exceptions, driving it to or from a repair or to a pre-arranged MOT test, and a buyer’s test drive is not one of them. You can be fined up to £1,000 for driving without a valid MOT.^[5] The rules for MOTs are different in Northern Ireland.^[5] Whether an MOT carries over to a new owner is answered in does the MOT transfer when I buy a used car.

5. 5. Take payment safely

   Warwickshire Trading Standards’ advice to private sellers is not to accept cash, to accept bank transfer only, and to keep hold of the car, keys and paperwork until the full payment has cleared in your bank account; if something does not feel right, walk away.^[8] If a buyer offers a cheque, UK Finance’s Take Five campaign says to wait for cheques to clear before despatching goods, and describes three kinds of cheque scam: counterfeit, forged and fraudulently altered.^[9] If you think you have lost money because of an online scam or fraud, GOV.UK says to contact Report Fraud if you are in England or Wales (online, or on 0300 123 2040) and to report the crime to Police Scotland if you are in Scotland.^[10]

6. 6. Hand over the slip and tell DVLA

   If the car is staying in the UK, give the buyer the green “new keeper” slip from the log book. You must then tell DVLA you have sold it and give them the buyer’s full name and address; if you do not, any vehicle tax refund you are owed might be affected.^[1] GOV.UK’s online service changes the registered keeper and sends a log book to the new keeper. It runs Monday to Friday, 7am to 9pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 7am to 8pm, and cannot be used if you have already posted the log book or do not have one.^[2] If you sold without a log book you must write to DVLA with your name and address, the registration number, the make and model, the exact date of sale and the new keeper’s name and address.^[2] The buyer is told to tax the car immediately and will need the green slip to do it.^[4] That one step on its own is answered in how do I tell DVLA I have sold my car.

7. 7. Vehicle tax: cancelled, refunded, not transferred

   The tax is not transferred to the buyer.^[2] You cancel it by telling DVLA, and a sale is one of the reasons GOV.UK lists; it says there is no other way to cancel vehicle tax.^[3] DVLA cancels the tax (and any Direct Debit, automatically) and sends a refund cheque for any full months left, calculated from the date DVLA gets your information and sent to the name and address on the log book.^[3] You will not get back credit card fees, the 5% surcharge on some Direct Debit payments or the 10% surcharge on a single six-month payment.^[3] If no cheque has arrived after 8 weeks, GOV.UK says to contact DVLA.^[3] The same answer, written for the question people ask, is do I get a refund on car tax when I sell my car.

What a private buyer is owed

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets three terms for goods a trader supplies to a consumer: satisfactory quality, fit for a purpose the consumer made known, and as described.^[12] But its goods chapter applies to “a contract for a trader to supply goods to a consumer”, and a trader is a person acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession.^[12] A private sale of your own car is not that, so the law that applies is the Sale of Goods Act 1979.

• You must have the right to sell the car, and it must be free from any charge or encumbrance not disclosed to the buyer.^[11] That is why finance matters, below.
• The car must correspond with its description.^[11]
• There is no implied term about quality or fitness for a purpose unless the seller sells in the course of a business, when the Act implies satisfactory quality and fitness for a purpose the buyer made known.^[11]

So what a private buyer can rely on is the description you give and your right to sell, which is the part you control: describe the car accurately. Both Acts apply across the UK, Northern Ireland included.^[11][12] This page does not cover what a buyer can do if a car does not match its description. If you are the one buying, start with your rights if a used car breaks down.

Selling a car that still has finance on it

The Sale of Goods Act implies that you have a right to sell the car and that it is free from any charge not disclosed to the buyer.^[11] Whether you can sell depends on the kind of agreement you have, how to get a settlement figure, and what happens if the sale price is below what you owe. Those are answered in can I sell a car that still has finance on it, and from the buyer’s side in buying a car with outstanding finance.

How to price your car before you list it

We hold no figures for what cars sell for, so we give none. What we do hold is what cars are advertised for on Autoza, and each of our three free pages says what it counts:

• Value your car values a UK car against live dealer asking prices for comparable make, model, year and mileage, and returns a range, not a single figure.
• Is this a good price? takes a make, model, year, mileage and a price, and compares it with the asking prices of similar cars for sale from dealers on Autoza. It shows the usual asking range and the cars it compared, and says plainly that these are asking prices, not sold prices, and not a valuation.
• The asking-price report gives the median asking price by make and model for cars listed on Autoza, with the method, and a free CSV. It says itself that these are asking prices on one marketplace, not sale prices or a UK index.

If you list your car on Autoza

Autoza is a used-car marketplace that dealers list their stock on. Registration also offers a “Buyer / private seller” account, and the listing form asks for a confirmed email address, at least three photos and a price (or “price on request”). Everything above applies wherever you advertise.

Frequently asked questions