Advice on selling a car for an estate

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

I figured I'd tap the CP hive mind for this one.
I've been asked to help sell a vehicle the belonged to my wife's grandfather who passed away.

In the past I did the same for my Father's car, and I knew a guy who bought cars to export to the US, so that was super easy.

I don't want to go through the pain of selling through autotrader or something like that, and I'm looking for anyone on CP who might work for a dealer, or a similar business that I used previously.

I realize I won't necessarily get as good of a price, but I'm looking for a simple solution.

So if anyone here buys cars, or can recommend someone who does I'd appreciate it.

[MrSector9]

What is the car? Different markets for different generations/models so the more information you can provide someone may be able to assist better.

[blankall]

As the representative of an estate you also have a duty to the beneficiaries to maximize profit on the sale. There are obviously reasonable limits to that duty.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by MrSector9

What is the car? Different markets for different generations/models so the more information you can provide someone may be able to assist better.

It's a 2022 Nissan Pathfinder.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by blankall

As the representative of an estate you also have a duty to the beneficiaries to maximize profit on the sale. There are obviously reasonable limits to that duty.

1) I'm not the executor, so it's not me doing it, I'm just helping out
2) There is no requirement to maximize it at any cost. Getting a reasonable sale price rather than putting in 10x the work to get a marginal better price isn't necessary

[Strange Brew]

Within reason were the operative words.

If you want to get a lousy deal, take it to a used car lot. If you’re looking to get fair value, put an ad in auto trader.

I sold my Dad’s car three years ago or so. Posted here on CP and put an ad in auto trader. Had a buyer in less than 48 hours.

I was only going to be in town for 5 days so was crunched for time. It was no problem.

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

It's a 2022 Nissan Pathfinder.

Take it to Nissan Dealership.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

Take it to Nissan Dealership.

For a fair deal you would take it to a dealer?

Seriously, it's a 3 year old SUV worth probably 35-40k, a dealer would offer no more than 30-33k, just advertise it for market value and it will be gone in a day or two.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Selling to a dealer is the best. You basically pay them a few grand to have them sit on your car, take donkeys for test drives, haggle, etc…. You just walk in, give them keys, and leave with cash. It’s the best. Selling used cars sucks ass.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Selling to a dealer is the best. You basically pay them a few grand to have them sit on your car, take donkeys for test drives, haggle, etc…. You just walk in, give them keys, and leave with cash. It’s the best. Selling used cars sucks ass.

Selling a used car is probably the easiest thing I have ever done. It's a sellers market. Ask a fair price and you will be done in 2 days.

For a car like this, my guess is you come out $10K ahead vs. selling to a dealer.

[Faust]

Newer vehicles in good shape with low kilometres - sell them privately or shop it around to dealerships to see what the best offers are that you can secure with the understanding that for that convenience you will be giving up somewhere around 3k to 8k

Older vehicles with higher kilometres - sending it to an auction company can be a good program. We sold an estate vehicle that way last year and had healthy bidding because it was advertised as an estate vehicle.

[troutman]

You can generally sell cars even before you have a grant of probate.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Selling a used car is probably the easiest thing I have ever done. It's a sellers market. Ask a fair price and you will be done in 2 days.

For a car like this, my guess is you come out $10K ahead vs. selling to a dealer.

Meh. I got $16k for my $20k truck, and $14k for a hail damaged Cherokee that I had listed at $18k and had a handful of test drives and then ghostings. I don’t miss that $9000 at all…

You also don’t need to do any sort of due maintenance, repairs, or cleaning to sell it to a dealer.

Depends what you like doing with your time I guess. Totally worth it for me.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

For a fair deal you would take it to a dealer?

Seriously, it's a 3 year old SUV worth probably 35-40k, a dealer would offer no more than 30-33k, just advertise it for market value and it will be gone in a day or two.

They’d offer half of that.

[firebug]

How many beneficiaries... ultimately its about keeping them happy. The Court doesn't expect you to get 'top dollar' but you want to avoid any appearance of self dealing.

My usual recommendation is to get quotes from two different dealers to establish a baseline value and then the executor is free to sell to whomever they want as long as it is better than the two quotes received.

While dealers wont give top dollar, if the vehicle gets damaged or stolen because the executor was trying to fish around on Kijiji or Marketplace they would likely be expected to reimburse the Estate out of their own pocket.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Meh. I got $16k for my $20k truck, and $14k for a hail damaged Cherokee that I had listed at $18k and had a handful of test drives and then ghostings. I don’t miss that $9000 at all…

You also don’t need to do any sort of due maintenance, repairs, or cleaning to sell it to a dealer.

Depends what you like doing with your time I guess. Totally worth it for me.

Oh I definitely hear you about the value of time and I would never sell most things privately. But $10k for 3 or 4 hours of work is a rather favorable calculation.

Plus there is also an ego/ self respect angle. Knowing I’m getting bent over at the car dealership to avoid a little bit of work is just hard for me to accept. It would be different if I was donating it or something.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Oh I definitely hear you about the value of time and I would never sell most things privately. But $10k for 3 or 4 hours of work is a rather favorable calculation.

Plus there is also an ego/ self respect angle. Knowing I’m getting bent over at the car dealership to avoid a little bit of work is just hard for me to accept. It would be different if I was donating it or something.

I guess, in my experience it took weeks. so if that’s not the case anymore then I can totally understand that point of view. When I did it in 2018 and 2019 I was struggling to get many bites and it was becoming a pain in the ass.

Framing it as “getting bent over” sure isn’t helping. They took risk and maintenance on, as well as storage, test drives, etc… and they need to make profit. It’s just understanding that. Selling it yourself is more of a financial bonus, selling to a dealer isn’t a screw job…

[GullFoss]

The dealer needs make $5k-$6k to cover overhead, cleaning up the car, cost of carry, risk of having misprinted the car etc. I find you don't end up keeping that entire amount for yourself when you sell the vehicle privately - you end up sharing some of that with the buyer. So on average, you're maybe saving $3k +/-

If this is an estate issue, id also question why you'd put in the effort of selling privately if you're not the primary beneficiary. The benefit of selling it privately accrues to multiple beneficiaries - if there's three beneficiaries, you're saving each on $1000 by selling it privately. And it's not even clear the seller is a primary beneficiary.

And when you sell it privately, you're going to get questions of whether you sold it for a good price, sold it to a friend etc. Just take it to the dealership and move forward

[PaperBagger'14]