Selling a car in Calgary: questions and answers

Your vehicle registration certificate, a valid photo ID, and a signed bill of sale. That's the whole list.

Alberta doesn't issue a separate paper title the way some places do - the registration certificate, the green slip, is your proof of ownership. It ties your name to the VIN and shows a buyer the car is genuinely yours to sell.

The bill of sale records who sold it, who bought it, the price, the date and the vehicle details. Alberta doesn't provide a standard form, so it's written up by one side or the other. We prepare it and you keep a copy.

Yes. Any Alberta registry agent can print you a replacement, usually the same day. Bring photo ID and the VIN. There's a small fee.

If you'd rather not make the trip, tell us on the first call. A lost registration is one of the most common things we deal with and it very rarely stops a sale.

No. Plates belong to you, not the vehicle. Take them off before the car leaves.

You can move them to your next vehicle or return them to a registry agent. This catches people out constantly, because in some places plates travel with the car. Not here.

No. There's no provincial sales tax in Alberta, and a private sale of your own vehicle isn't subject to GST. You don't charge tax and you don't owe any on the sale.

If you're selling a vehicle owned by a business rather than personally, that's a different situation - worth a word with your accountant.

Not once ownership has properly transferred - but that's the part people get wrong, and it's the biggest risk in a private sale.

In Alberta a vehicle isn't transferred automatically when money changes hands. Until the new owner takes the paperwork to a registry agent and registers it in their name, the plates and anything attached to that vehicle - tickets, tolls, photo radar - can still come back to you.

Three things protect you:

• Keep your signed copy of the bill of sale. It's your proof of the date you stopped owning the car.
• Take your plates off before it leaves.
• Deal with your insurance afterwards, not before. Cancel or move the policy once the car is actually gone - canceling early can leave a gap.

This is one of the real advantages of selling to an established business rather than to a stranger from a listing. There's a documented transaction, a bill of sale prepared properly, and a company that isn't going to leave the car sitting unregistered in someone's yard with your name still attached to it.

Some buyers - curbsiders in particular - will ask you to hand over the registration unsigned so they can flip the vehicle without ever recording themselves as the owner. If you agree, you stay legally on the hook for a car you no longer have.

A legitimate buyer will complete the paperwork properly, in front of you, and give you a copy. If someone asks you to leave it blank, that alone tells you what you need to know about them.

Five questions. A real buyer answers all five without hesitating.

Warning signs: a toll-free-only number with no address, usually an out-of-province call center brokering your car to someone local. A quote that arrives without anyone asking what's wrong with the car. Any request to leave paperwork blank. Payment "once we 've processed it."

Our answers, for the record: the number doesn't change unless the car isn 't what you described; towing is free and never deducted; you're paid in cash or by e-transfer before the car is loaded; we 're at [address] in Calgary; and we prepare the bill of sale and you keep a copy.

Usually one of three things, and none of them are about negotiation.

• The catalytic converter. Missing or replaced with an aftermarket unit makes a substantial difference.
• Wheels and tires. Alloys with usable rubber are worth meaningfully more than rusted steel wheels.
• Timing. Scrap metal prices move week to week, which matters most on end-of-life vehicles.

Beyond those: mileage, whether the car runs, what damage it has, and how much demand there is for that specific model. Two cars of the same year and model can be worth genuinely different amounts.

Privately you'll usually get more for a clean running car. For anything damaged or non-running, a business is safer and usually not much cheaper once you count the weeks.

What a private sale actually involves: strangers who know you own something valuable coming to your address, test drives in your car with someone you've just met, payment fraud that's common enough to be routine, and the liability problem above if the buyer never registers it.

What it's worth: on a car in demand, real money. On a car that doesn't run, often nothing at all - the small pool of people who want a project car know they're the only ones bidding.

Yes. An out-of-province vehicle can be sold here without you doing anything extra.

If you were keeping it and registering it in Alberta you'd need an out-of-province inspection first, which typically runs a couple of hundred dollars at a mechanic. Selling it to Calgary Car Buyer, you don't. That inspection is often exactly what pushes people to sell rather than keep a vehicle they've brought into the province.