How to Sell Your Car in Alberta

Selling a car in Alberta takes very little paperwork. There is no provincial sales tax on the sale, no safety inspection required on a vehicle already registered here, and the plate comes off and stays with you. The buyer handles the registry.

The sale itself is the short part. Almost everything that decides how it goes happens before anyone arrives.

What does Alberta not make you do?

Three things sellers budget time for and do not need.

• Pay tax on the sale. Alberta charges no provincial sales tax, and a private seller is not a GST registrant, so you cannot add GST either. The number you agree on is the number that changes hands.
• Get a safety inspection. A vehicle already registered in Alberta does not need one to be sold. The exceptions are vehicles coming in from another province and vehicles rebuilt from salvage, which have their own inspections.
• Do the transfer. The buyer registers the vehicle in their own name at a registry agent, on their own schedule, since Alberta sets no deadline for it. The only registry errand that is yours is an optional lien search.

What is your car actually worth?

Get the number before you do anything else. Everything after this point is decided against it: what you will accept, whether the sale clears your loan, and whether a private sale is worth the work it takes.

On an ordinary used car that number turns on three things: kilometres, condition and trim, what a claim on the history is worth in dollars, and what the market is doing to that model. It does not turn on what you paid, what you still owe, or what you spent on it last month.

Which is also the reason not to spend money first. A new windshield, an oil change, minor maintenance: none of it comes back in the offer. An online offer takes about a minute and gives you a real number rather than an asking price.

How do you check for a lien on your own car?

A lender's claim is registered in the Personal Property Registry, and it attaches to the VIN rather than to you. Ownership cannot move while it is sitting there. No registry agent will complete a transfer on a vehicle with a lien still outstanding against it, and it is not something a buyer and seller can agree to work around between themselves.

That does not stop you selling a financed car. It decides the order things happen in, and if you owe more than the car is worth, the shortfall is settled before the lien comes off.

A VIN search at a registry agent costs about ten dollars. Run it on your own car the week you decide to sell, rather than finding out on the day.

Two things account for most of the people turned away at a registry counter: a loan still showing against the vehicle, and unpaid tickets. The third is a vehicle that is not registered to the person selling it, which stops the appointment where it stands until the seller goes and registers it.

If the registration carries two names, or is expired or lost, or is in the name of someone who has died, each of those has its own route through.

What paperwork do you need to sell a car in Alberta?

The bill of sale is the one document the sale genuinely cannot happen without, because the buyer has to hand a completed copy over to register the car. If two names are on the registration, both people sign.

The document sellers most often cannot find on the day is the registration itself. Locate it the week before.

• Your vehicle registration, in your name
• Valid government photo ID
• A bill of sale: Alberta publishes the standard form, REG3126
• A payout letter from your lender if the car is financed
• Both sets of keys, the owner's manual, and any service records you have

Who should you sell to?

Whoever you sell to, the Alberta half of it is identical: the same bill of sale, the same transfer for the buyer to go and do, the same plate coming off your car before it leaves. What changes is the price and how much of the work is yours, and that trade is worked out in full elsewhere.

List it publicly and expect volume. Time wasters, and a smaller number running something: fake bank drafts, fake certified cheques, and a version where somebody asks for your credit card so they can pull a Carfax on your own vehicle. That last one is a card harvest with a car in front of it.

Check whoever is coming against AMVIC's public register before they arrive. It takes a minute, and it is the check that tells a licensed buyer from an unlicensed one.

The highest offer is also not automatically the best one. A seller came to us recently having turned down more money elsewhere, because the person offering it did not feel right to her. She took less and was happier for it.

What happens when the buyer comes to see the car?

Somebody walks around the body looking for dents, scrapes and panel work the photographs missed, takes it on a short drive, and confirms the number. It does not take long, and when a number does move it is almost always something that was not mentioned.

Book the day around the bank rather than around the inspection. We do not buy cars on a Sunday, because the banks are shut and the money cannot move.

What is the safest way to get paid?

A bank draft is the standard, because it leaves a paper trail: who it came from, who it went to, and when. Fake drafts and fake certified cheques are the most common serious fraud in a private sale, and what defeats them is not studying the paper. It is where you are standing when it changes hands.

1. 1Confirm the draft in person at the bank that issued it. Watching it being issued is better still.
2. 2Sign the bill of sale once the money is confirmed, not while somebody is still explaining it.
3. 3Take the plate off, then hand over the keys.

What happens to your plate when the car sells?

The plate belongs to you, not to the car. It comes off before the buyer drives away, every time.

Keep your copy of the signed bill of sale, call your insurer the same day, and know how to check the car actually left your name.

An Alberta sale that goes badly nearly always went wrong before the buyer arrived: a lien nobody checked, a name on the registration that did not match the seller, or money that moved before anyone confirmed it. Handle those three in advance and what is left is a short appointment and a signature.