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How To Sell a Car to A Friend In 2022? All You Need to Know

how to sell a car to a friend in 2022

If you're looking for “how to sell a car to a friend in 2022,” follow these steps:

⚠️ If It's Broken, Don't Fix It - Get Paid Cash for Your Vehicle ⚠️


  • Understand the expectations
  • Deal with outstanding payments
  • Decide on the payment method
  • Put together all paperwork

Selling your car to a family member or a friend might be one of the easiest ways to help you get rid of your car fast and for decent money. However, many people are hesitant about selling their vehicles to their family members or friends because they are afraid that the car might not work properly.

However, people enjoyed many successful stories when selling their cars to family members or friends. Once you follow the right procedure, you shouldn't be worried about any negative consequences. Once you are very clear with a friend about the vehicle’s issues, it is unlikely that you'll deal with any problems.

This article provides you with our secret recipe for selling a car to a friend in 2022. It highlights all details you need to know. If your family member or friend doesn't know about selling cars, don't worry because we got you! We will highlight all potential things that you'll need to keep in mind if the buyer doesn't have previous experience in buying cards and doesn't know any Clue about what needs to be done, especially for the paperwork.

How to sell a car to a friend in 2022? A step-by-step procedure

If you would like to sell your car to a friend in 2022, all you must do is to follow these simple steps:


1.     Understand the expectations

Before we dive into the details about how to sell your car to a family member or friend, you must have a clear idea about what the friend is expecting from you. Your friend expects full transparency and does not expect any hiding any potential issues in your vehicle. Therefore, you need to provide as many details about your vehicle as possible to your friend, so everything is clear, and nothing is hidden. Consider the following when preparing for selling your car to a front in 2022:

Reveal damages

If you know that your vehicle got involved in a car accident, you must be upfront with your friend. For example, if there's a dent or some damage around the corners of your car, you should show these clearly without any hesitation because this shows your friend that you are fully transparent, and you have nothing to hide about your car.

Suggest prepurchase inspection

If you're worried about what could go wrong after selling your car to your friend, you can advise him to perform a prepurchase inspection. In this inspection, your friend is expected to bring a whole mechanic ticket closer to the vehicle and highlight any potential issues that you're unaware of, if you don't have advanced experience in car mechanics.

Not that this prepurchase inspection comes at a cost, and if the vehicle is worth it, it might not hurt to spend additional money bringing the mechanic to ensure that everything is clear.

Bring a vehicle history report

Whether you’re selling your car to a family member or a friend, or probably a private buyer, we always recommend bringing a vehicle history report. This report shows all possible information about your car. In addition, it highlights the most important details that any buyer would want to know before buying your car. For example, it should have detailed information about previous car accidents, previous owners, etc.

Highlight service workers

While you want to be clear about the bet about your vehicle, you still want to show the good things of audits. For example, if you've been maintaining the car properly, you might want to show some records of maintenance indicating that you've never skipped an oil change, for instance. The more details you provide your buyer, the better the relationship and the less contention after finalizing the deal.

Explain future repairs

If you've been noticing some weird symptoms indicating internal problems, you might want to be upfront with these as well. For instance, if you expect that the transition will fail because it showed some symptoms of that transmission, you will need to be clear with your friend and let him know. On the other hand, if you are happy to buy your car considering the issues, it should not be a problem.

2.     Deal with outstanding payments

If you are all in your vehicle, you must clear those up before handing your car to your friend. Otherwise, you might want to be clear with a friend and reach out to the lender if he's willing to move this money under your friend’s name. Note that sometimes many lenders don't like to do this, which means that you'll have to confirm with the lender before moving forward with finalizing the deal with your friend.

3.     Decide on the payment method

You must decide on the payment method the first time you talk to your friend. Yes, it is your friend, but at the same time, you don't want to have it up in the air without deciding on how you are planning to get paid. For example, you can request this if you would like cash payments. However, if your friend still would like to be in check, that shouldn't be a problem if you are happy with it.

4.     Put together all paperwork

When you're sewing a car, there are plenty of documents that you must prepare before finalizing the deal. These documents might differ depending on where you live and depending on your state's regulations. However, in general, your set might require the following paperwork:

The title

The title or the pink slip is a critical document you'll have to sign to transfer ownership. If you don't have a title, I don't think it will be straightforward to sell your vehicle unless someone else wants to take care of this issue. Typically, most people who don't have a title prefer to sell their cars to cash companies like cash cars buyers since we take care of all this hassle.

A bill of sale

Yes, you're selling your car to a friend. However, you still want to sign on a bill of sale. Sometimes your state might have a specific form that you have to download from the local DMV website. Otherwise, you can download any bill of sale from the Internet to finalize the deal.

A form for transferring ownership

There are some states which require a certain form to transfer ownership. Therefore, check with your local DMV website and see if your state requires this. Once you confirm, you can easily download it and fill it in the way it requires and finalize the deal.

The plates

Depending on where you live, the license plates might stay with the vehicle or go with the owner. Check with your state and confirm before handing the license plate to your friend.

Other paperwork

As we highlighted before, your state might require additional documentation like a smog test. Therefore, give your DMV office a call and confirm with them what else you must prepare if you're planning to sell your car to your friend. Note that you want to assume that your friend doesn't know how to sell the car and what needs to be signed. Therefore, take full responsibility for understanding the full process without waiting till the last minute.

Mistakes avoid when selling your car to a friend

Learning how to sell a car to a friend requires understanding what could go wrong. While we highlighted that it shouldn't be big trouble to sell your car to a friend, there are some mistakes that many people fall into unintentionally. Look at some of these mistakes and try your best to avoid them:

1.     Leaving people work till last minute

Although you know that it shouldn't be a big trouble to finalize the deal with your friend, put it together. The paperwork requires some patients. As we mentioned before, every state has some requirements, and without carefully reading through the requirements, you might get into legal issues. Therefore, to not leave preparing the paperwork until the last minute and ready it upfront.

2.     Assuming a random number for your car's value

The biggest mistake you can make when selling your cars out front is to assume a random number for your vehicle's value. As we indicated before, there is a current increase in the used car prices, and therefore, what your vehicle was supposed to make a couple of years ago should not be the same thing nowadays.

Of course, you don't want to overestimate your vehicle's price if it doesn't depreciate. But at the same time, you want to take good advantage of the current increase in the used car market. However, you can also reduce the price slightly to help your friend and give him a really good deal.

To feel comfortable asking for your vehicle, you can always go with tools like Kelly Blue Book. KBB should provide you with an expected minimum and maximum price for your vehicle. However, it does not include any expected repair costs. Thus, you'll have to subtract those from the CVV value beforehand and get them to your family member or friend. Once you have the KBB value, it will be a good negotiation point to convince your family member or friend to buy your vehicle with the asking price or at least appreciate it when you reduce the price slightly.

3.     Spending too much on repairs

You must invest a little bit in preparing your car to select a family member or friend. However, it is not recommended that you overspend. In other words, you don't necessarily have to replace major components like a bad transmission or a falling engine because that's not worth it. Of course, you don't want to sell your car to a friend with major damages, but at the same time, you don't want to overspend before the sale. So, instead of selling your car to a friend, you might want to reach out to other people who might be interested in investing and fixing this vehicle.

4.     Hiding some details

Hiding car problems is never a good idea, and it will cause losing your friendship. In other words, if you know that your car has some issues, you got to be very clear with your friend about it because he will discover them. Thus, list all knows about your vehicle and highlight the pros and cons of everything in your car. This way, you save your friends and surprise your friend with bad news.

How to sell a car to a friend in 2022? Final thoughts

So your cards are friend is a great idea, and if your friend is interested, this might be the perfect timing in 2022 because there is a massive car shortage. It will be a win-win for both of you because you can get really good money out of the car, and your friend doesn't have to deal with the everyday hassle of the used car market especially related to the skyrocketing increase in used car prices.

While many people feel hesitant about selling their vehicles to a friend, it is one of the easiest things to do if you follow the right procedure. This article provided you with all you need to know about how to sell a car to the front in 2022. In addition, it highlighted important expectations from your friend that you must keep in mind before finalizing the deal.

If you still don't feel comfortable selling your car to a friend and don't want to deal with all the paperwork hassle, you can always sell your car to a better alternative, cash cars buyer!

Cash cars buyer is one of the top-rated car removal companies in the nation that guarantees to pay you the top dollars and provide you with free towing despite your living location around the united states.

Our process is very straightforward and doesn't take more than a couple of days to get your car removed safely and for the most money.

All it takes you is to:

  • Describe your car’s type and condition
  • Receive our instant free quote
  • Accept the quote
  • Get your car removed and receive your cash payment on the spot!

To learn more about our process and our teen, you can reach out to us by giving us a call at 866-924-4608 or visit our home page click on the free instant online offer.

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