Most private car sales in the Netherlands are completely unremarkable. Somebody messages, somebody looks at the car, money moves, the register changes. The reason to think about your address at all is not that buyers are dangerous. It is that an advert quietly turns your home into a shop with opening hours you did not set.
That is a small annoyance for one weekend and a larger one if the car takes a month to sell. There are a few decisions that keep the sale and the house apart, and all of them are made before the advert goes up. If you would rather not advertise in the first place, the routes to a sale that avoid Marktplaats compares the alternatives.
What an advert gives away, and what it does not
Your number plate (kenteken) is not the problem. The location field is.
Dutch car adverts normally carry a place name and often the first part of the postcode, because buyers filter on distance. That is useful to them and harmless on its own. What changes the picture is the combination: a postcode area, a car, a street visible behind it, and a message thread telling somebody when you are home.
The number plate itself reveals less than people expect. The RDW’s statement on the data the RDW registers sets out the split. Vehicle data can be looked up free of charge by anybody, which is how a buyer checks the make, the roadworthiness test (APK) record and the mileage history against your advert. The personal data attached to a vehicle goes only to the person it is registered to, or to bodies entitled to it by law, such as the police and the tax authorities. A member of the public cannot type your plate into a website and get your name and address.
So leave the plate readable. Buyers use it to confirm that your advert and the register agree, and an advert that matches the register reads as honest. The thing to think about is the rest of the frame.
The photographs are the part people forget
Look at your photographs for the things that are not the car.
A set taken on your own drive tends to include the house number by the door, the street name on the corner, the neighbour’s front window, and your bicycles in the garden. None of it is a disaster. All of it is unnecessary, because the photographs exist to show a car.
Shoot somewhere else. A quiet industrial street on a Sunday, a supermarket car park out of hours, an empty section of a park and ride: plain background, even light, nothing in shot that locates you. The pictures look better as well, which is the small bonus for the extra twenty minutes. One line in the advert settles the rest: viewing by appointment, at a location agreed in advance. It sets the expectation before the first message arrives and it makes the next part easy.
Decide the meeting place before anyone asks
Pick the place yourself, and pick it once.
Somewhere public, open and easy to describe. A supermarket car park, a station car park, the forecourt of the garage where the car gets its APK, a busy street with space to pull over. Daylight if you can. If the car has to be seen in the dark, somewhere lit and populated.
Say it plainly in the first reply, as a statement and not an opening offer. A sentence such as “I can meet you at the supermarket car park on the Dorpsstraat at eleven on Saturday” does the job. Almost everybody says yes. A buyer who insists on seeing the car on your drive and will not meet anywhere else has told you something worth knowing, and there will be other buyers.
Bring somebody with you. Tell somebody else where you are going and when you expect to be back. This is the same advice anybody would give about selling a sofa, and it is no more dramatic than that.
If the car is at your address anyway
Some cars cannot be moved. One that does not start goes nowhere under its own power, and a car on a suspension (geschorst) is barred from standing on a public road and from being driven on one, which the RDW states on its page about requesting a suspension. In those cases the viewing happens where the car is.
Then it is a matter of small, boring choices.
Give an appointment time, one buyer at a time, and do not leave the slot open. Meet them at the kerb, by the car, and keep the whole viewing outside. There is no reason for anyone to come into the house, and “I will bring the documents out” is a complete answer to a request to use your bathroom or sit down for a coffee. Have another adult at home, or on the phone, or simply visible. Keep the keys, the registration card (kentekencard) and every digit of the registration code (tenaamstellingscode) in your pocket for the whole appointment, indoors and out.
If the car sits in a shared courtyard or an underground garage, meet the buyer on the street and walk in together. Do not hold a door open for somebody you have not met.
Test drives that do not start from your street
A test drive that begins and ends at your front door tells the buyer exactly where the car sleeps.
Start it from the agreed meeting point and bring it back there. Agree the route first and keep it short. If the car cannot be driven at all, say that in the advert, because a buyer who turns up expecting a drive will be irritated and a buyer who knew in advance will not.
Who may drive, what your policy allows and what to look at on a licence belong to a separate conversation. The point here is narrower. The start and end of the drive is a location you get to choose.
The version where nobody comes round at all
Selling to a buyer that collects is one appointment with one person at a time you agreed, and the advert never exists.
That is the structural difference. An advert produces an unknown number of visits from unknown people over an unknown number of weeks. A collection is a single arrangement: the car is checked against your description, the registration leaves your name at the RDW there and then, the money is paid before the car goes onto the truck, and the proof of transfer (vrijwaringsbewijs) stays with you. The person who comes speaks English, and a car that does not start is loaded onto a transporter.
It still happens at your address, because that is where the car is. One visit, by arrangement, with the paperwork done on the bonnet, is a different proposition from a month of Saturday afternoons.
If that is the version you want, ask us for an offer. It is free, and nothing binds you until you accept it.
Frequently asked questions
Does my advert have to show my address?
No. Dutch car sites work on a place name and a postcode area for distance filtering, and a viewing by appointment at an agreed location is normal and widely accepted. You do not owe anybody your street.
Can someone find my name and address from my number plate?
No. The RDW makes vehicle data public but releases the personal data attached to a vehicle only to the registered owner and to bodies entitled to it by law. The car is public information. You are not.
Should I blur the number plate in my photographs?
There is no need, and a readable plate helps a serious buyer check your advert against the register. The background of the photograph deserves more attention: the house number, the street sign and the front window.
Where is a good place to meet a buyer?
Somewhere public, open and easy to find, in daylight where possible. A supermarket or station car park, or the forecourt of your own garage, all work. Tell someone where you are going.
The car cannot be driven, so buyers have to come to my address. What then?
Keep the viewing outside, one appointment at a time, with another adult around and the keys and documents in your pocket. Or sell to a buyer who collects the car on a transporter, which turns the whole thing into one visit.