Hi I have a question which I need someones help with please.
I have a personal plate on my car bought from DVLA as a present by my parents. The MOT expires on the 28th Jan, the car is currently off road with a blown head gasket and is not viable to repair.
I am yet to find a new motor and may end up with an older one.
Therefore i am considering selling the plate. I have registered it for sale with one of the main comapanies who have offered me 400 pound once sold. this is a profit of 150 pounds. which i appreciate is pretty good however I have just checked on-line and they are offering it for sale for about 800. I realise that they are paying all the fees etc and doing the advertising but wondering on what my options are.
Has anybody sold a number on ebay ? do i need to put it on retention or offer to pay the transfer costs for the buyer ? how do i actually do this ?
I guess I need to so all of this by the 28th of Jan ?
Any advice is appreciated
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You can put it on retention.
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what's the number?.........someone on here might be interested and/or know someone that is, so you'd cut out the middle man
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Interesting they have listed it at double what they're offering you. My rule of thumb is that registration plates advertised by all the big companies are 'worth' about half what they advertise them for. That's based on what a plate actually sells for on eBay compared to similar plates listed (sometimes you see the same plate on both). The big companies might only get near your ideal price after a very long time waiting!
I presume the plate is a prefix-style. Do you have very common initials? Try looking on the DVLA website to see if any similar plates with the same initials are still available. If, lets say, there's one with the number only a few out for £250 (including fee), then anyone interested in your plate would go there first (this doesn't apply if yours 'spells' out a word or has just a 1). If, like my initials, all the decent combinations have gone, you may be more in luck.
It will cost £105 to put it on retention. If you can transfer it directly to another car (yours or anyone else's), it's only £80. If it's on retention, it costs £25 each year to renew or £25 to add/change a nominee.
If it turns out the DVLA has one very similar for £250 hassle-free with fees paid, you're unlikely to get much more than £100 on eBay or anywhere else with the buyer paying the fees on top.
I haven't listed on eBay but did consider buying just a plate. As a buyer, I preferred plates where the seller offered to pay, or better had already paid the transfer fees, because it seems to add less than £80 or £105 to the final auction price. As a seller, you want to state the buyer pays the DVLA fees to get a higher net sale price for yourself and cut the eBay fees. Definitely do mention whether you will pay the fees or not as it makes a huge difference to what the buyer pays at this price level (a lot don't) - any uncertainty will put off buyers so you get even less.
With Christmas coming up, plus the impending MoT expiry, you want would to list on eBay ASAP. The certificate probably won't come through in time to you on behalf of your buyer before Christmas though. I wouldn't start the retention process off yet though if you're eBaying straight away. If you do, you might get the retention certificate sooner, but it will delay your buyer as you still have to send off to add the buyer as a nominee and pay the £25. If you hold off until the auction ends and your buyer has paid, you may well still be able to do a transfer before Christmas, or at least get the retention certificate with the buyer as nominee on first application without the extra £25 fee. It's quite easy to get hold of the physical plastic plates without any of the legally required proof for the buyer to prepare for Christmas Day.
If your plate is of the format A123 ABC, ensure the listing title has the proper space in there. Some people do trawl through the whole lot, but anyone with initials ABC would only search for that term and A123ABC wouldn't come up. Set it as a no reserve auction for what you would expect it to sell for, being realistic. If it is an uncommon set of initials, it won't get much interest and only get a couple of bids if at all. Even worse would be to list with a 99p start and find it only sells for that! If you've never used eBay before, list it on someone else's account. A zero feedback will make things worse.
If it turns out the plate isn't likely to sell for as much as you hoped, and you do quite like it, keeping it on retention for yourself may be the best option (you can always try selling it later). You have 12 months to find another car to put it on before having to pay the £25 renewal and once the £105 fee has been paid you don't need to pay anymore to put it on another car.
What eBay might be helpful for is your old car, if you had thought it's almost worthless with a blown head gasket. Even MOT failure undriveables seem to make good money!
Hope this helps, James
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I recently sold the number plate off my last (scraped) car to one of the big companies.
The first co was not interested.
The second co first offered me a price.
I asked further and they said the alternative was to sell on commission.
As the retention was about to run out and I did not want the hassle I sold it to them
It was advertised for a few months before it disappeared from their list.
I was happy to get some £££s for it and let them take the risk of it hanging around.
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I have an old 1963 Honda C50 moped registered in my name, last time it was on the road was in 1978. Will that plate still belong to me or will the number be cancelled by the DVLA after all this time?
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Wishful thinking I feel. I wouldn't mind getting the number back of a 1956 Morris Minor that I scrapped in 1972, SOX78. There is probably a Boston or Chicago baseball fan out there who would pay a pretty penny for it!
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Will that plate still belong to me or will the number be cancelled by the DVLA after all this time?
Have you tried looking up the numberplate on the DVLA or RAC website to see what it throws up?
www.vehiclelicence.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp (Click on 'Vehicle enquiry' on the LH side of the page)
or
www.rac.co.uk/web/vehiclechecks (click on Vehicle data search' )
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