Four routes, one set of paperwork
The RDW end of a sale does not care which route you pick. The car leaves your name, lands in someone else's, and you walk away with a proof of transfer. Everything that differs sits upstream of that: who finds the buyer, who decides the price, and who is exposed if the money or the person turns out to be a problem. The RDW does draw one line that matters to you, between a sale to a private individual and a sale to a business on its own register, because the documents move differently in each case.
- A private sale. You write the advert, field the messages, meet the strangers and defend the price. The payment risk is yours.
- A sale to a dealer. The dealer looks at the car, names a figure, and takes the car and the resale risk away with it.
- A trade-in (inruilGiving your old car to a dealer as part of the payment for the next one, so that two prices get settled in a single negotiation.). The same thing, except the figure is settled inside the price of the car you are buying from that dealer.
- A buyer service. A company that buys from the public. You describe the car, it quotes, and you accept or decline.
What a private sale puts on your plate
Start with who is even allowed to buy. A private buyer must be 18 or over, live at a Dutch address and have an entry in the BRP, the Personal Records Database. Somebody here on a short stay, or not yet registered with a municipality, cannot take the car over at all, and discovering that in a car park on a Saturday wastes both your afternoons.
The rest is labour. The advert, the photographs, the messages from people who never appear, the viewings, and a price nobody backs up but you. Documents are split down the middle: you pass over the registration card and every digit of the registration code, and the buyer does the registering. How the transfer itself runs covers that half, and the papers to dig out first covers yours.
Where you would advertise, and in which language
Marktplaats is where most second hand cars in this country get advertised. When we looked, the site and its buttons were Dutch with no language switch anywhere, so count on a browser translation, and look at the live site yourself because these things change.
Writing the advert in English is allowed, though your readers are on a Dutch site and plenty of them will answer in Dutch. Stick to what a buyer can verify: make and model, year, mileage, when the APK runs out, the damage. They will put the number through the RDW Kentekencheck regardless, so an advert that lines up with the register reads as honest and one that does not reads as a reason to walk away. If the advertising is the part you want no share of, the routes with no advert at all are set out separately.
Viewings, test drives and your insurance policy
Read the policy before you promise anyone a test drive. It states who may drive the car, and some policies name the policyholder and nobody else. Your insurer can settle the question in one phone call. Then ask for the driving licence, and hold on to it long enough to look at the photograph.
Meet in daylight, somewhere public, and tell a friend where you are going. Ride along on the drive. The keys, the card and the registration code stay in your pocket throughout, inside the car and outside it, until the sale is actually agreed.
Getting paid, and the tricks to watch for
Two things have to be true before the car moves. The money is sitting in your own bank account, and you are holding the proof of transfer (vrijwaringsbewijsThe dated receipt showing the car has left your name. The rule it exists for is simple: no proof, no handover.). The RDW tells sellers to release a vehicle only once they hold that proof. Mijn RDW, opened with your DigiD, or the public Kentekencheck will confirm the car has left your name.
Your banking app is the only evidence of payment worth anything. A payment link in a chat message is not evidence. A screenshot of a transfer is not evidence either, and a screenshot takes a minute to fake. The RDW warns separately about text messages that pretend to come from the RDW, and the advice there is to open no links and type in no details.
Then there are the classics. The buyer who sends too much and asks you to wire the difference back. The buyer who will not meet and wants the car shipped. The buyer in a sudden hurry at exactly the moment your bank is slow. None of this needs arguing with. Keep the keys.
Dealers and trade-ins, and where the money goes
A dealer is buying stock, not a car, and the offer has that priced into it. The ANWB, publisher of the Koerslijst value indication, sets out the costs a dealer carries: the warranty it will owe, the work to make the car saleable, the money tied up while it stands unsold, and how quickly it expects to move. Where a trade figure comes from goes into what that does to the number you hear.
Selling to a business the RDW recognises changes the mechanics in your favour. The complete registration documents go to its staff, and the proof of transfer comes back to you from them on the spot. The RDW sign on the premises is how you tell. A trade-in runs the same way with one trap: your car and their car are a single negotiation. Ask for the two figures separately and in writing, or a generous allowance quietly reappears in the price of the new car.
What a buyer service does and does not do
A buyer service quotes on a description, usually one you fill in online, then organises the purchase itself. The advert, the viewings and the test drives all vanish. So does the competition, because one company looking at your car is one opinion, so put the car to two or three others if you want a second. The checks worth doing before you accept apply to any company, this one included.
That is the business we are in at webuycar.nl. Enter your number plate at webuycar.nl and a fair offer comes back to you by email, free, with nothing to sign. Hold it up against a dealer or a private sale. Say yes and we collect the car anywhere in the Netherlands at no cost to you, with payment made at the handover.
Which route fits your situation
Work backwards from your calendar. A private sale wants weeks of evenings and a flexible date, and pays you for them in control over the price and the buyer. A dealer or a buyer service wants an afternoon and hands you a figure to accept or refuse. A trade-in earns its place only if you were buying from that dealer anyway. The second question is tolerance: some people are untroubled by strangers driving their car, and some would rather not find out.
A move abroad tends to settle the whole thing. A Dutch buyer needs a registered Dutch address, and you want the sale closed before you hand in your own registration at the municipality. Timing a sale around your departure sets out the order.