A vehicle purchase and sale agreement is a document that records the fact of transfer of rights to movable property from one owner to another. It contains essential terms that determine the subject of the agreement, its quality, and cost. Often, previous car owners do not keep the contract after the sale, just like new ones - after registering the vehicle with the traffic police, they consider the contract no longer necessary.
The contract may be lost or damaged. However, in some cases it may be required, so it is better to take care of restoring the agreement in advance.
Getting ready for the deal
To ensure that the transaction goes through without force majeure, check the documents for the car and the owner. There are scammers among private owners - the car being sold may be stolen, pledged to the bank, or even scrapped. Therefore, before purchasing, ask the seller to provide a complete package of documents:
- original car passport (PTS);
- serial book with VIN number;
- certificate of registration (CTC);
- diagnostic card;
- former or current insurance policy;
- certificate of ownership;
- the seller’s passport or power of attorney from the owner with his contacts.
If the seller cannot provide any documents, it is better to refuse the purchase.
We check the owner
Ask the seller to show his personal passport and compare it with the data in the owner’s documents and the MTPL insurance policy. If the seller is not the owner, ask him to show the owner’s power of attorney and give his contact phone number. Call the owner and ask who the seller of the car is to him, whether the owner gave permission for the sale and the execution of a power of attorney.
To identify a reseller, ask the owner to name the make, model, characteristics of the car, where he bought it and what service center he used to service it. Resellers sell a lot of cars, so they can get confused and give the wrong information. The owner's answers must match the documents.
Checking the VIN at the dealership
The condition of the basic equipment of the machine can be checked at the dealer. Ask the car owner to go with you to the dealership with all the documents for the car. An inspection officer will check the vehicle.
For example, if you buy a Ford Focus sedan, and as a result of checking the VIN belongs to an Audi, the number is fake, and the car may be stolen. The description of the basic configuration must match the characteristics of the car being sold.
If everything is in order with the documents for the car, and the seller inspires confidence, you can negotiate a deal. Let's consider two ways of concluding transactions - with a private owner and a car dealership.
We conclude a purchase and sale agreement with a private owner
A standard form of a car purchase and sale agreement (SPA) can be easily found in search engines. A notary is not required to register a document, but to be on the safe side, you can sign the documents at a notary's office.
Some drivers sign a certificate of registration directly with the traffic police in order to check the car on the spot for the presence of a “double” and register a new certificate. Ask the owner of the car to come to the traffic police, sign an agreement with him and pay for the purchase upon registration.
Prepare and print out the purchase and sale agreement in advance - 4-6 copies, the transfer acceptance certificate - 2 copies, a sheet of paper for receipt. The buyer needs to give one copy each to the traffic police and the tax office.
How to fill out a purchase and sale agreement:
- write the data in full, without abbreviations;
- do not make mistakes, typos, blots;
- signatures in the contract, acceptance certificate, receipt and PTS must be in the same pen;
- if there is an empty column, put a dash so that in the future the seller does not enter unnecessary data;
- The contract must be completely either printed or handwritten. In the printed version, you can only fill out the fields and add signatures.
- Please include the VIN, make and model of your vehicle carefully.
In the car passport, fill in the owner column. Please provide your details: full name, registration address. Record the date of sale as in the contract. In the “Document of ownership” section, indicate “purchase and sale agreement dated xx.xx.xxxx”. Be sure to sign it yourself and ask the seller to sign it.
Indicate in the contract only the amount you are paying for the car. If it later turns out that the transaction is declared invalid - due to forged documents, a ban on car registration or other reasons, you will only be able to claim the amount specified in the contract.
Before you give the money, ask the seller to write a receipt for the amount he received from the sale of the car. It is better to pay for the purchase through a bank by transferring money to the seller’s card in order to record the transfer of money.
If the seller is not the owner, then a notarized power of attorney for the right to sell on behalf of the owner must be attached to the contract. In this case, the contract must contain the data and signature of the seller, not the owner.
After you sign the agreement, fill out the acceptance certificate. In the list of items, indicate everything that the former owner gives away with the car. Typically the list includes:
- 2 pairs of keys;
- diagnostic card;
- STS and PTS;
- old or current MTPL insurance policy;
- license plate numbers, if the seller gives them with the car;
- 3 copies of the purchase and sale agreement.
If you do not have a certificate or passport, you will not be able to register with the traffic police.
Come to the signing of the contract with a friend or relative: it will be more difficult for an unscrupulous seller to confuse several people.
Why does the Federal Tax Service require you to provide it?
After selling the car, the former owner is required to pay income tax of 13%. This is stated in Article 208 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. According to Article 220 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, one of the conditions for receiving a property deduction is the existence of a purchase and sale agreement. If a document is lost, it must be restored.
Will they accept a copy?
If a person who has lost the DCP managed to make a copy of the document, it must be certified by a notary and taken to the tax office, where they are required to accept this document.
What to do if you have lost your document and need to submit a declaration?
A declaration of income - 3-NDFL must be submitted if the owner of the car sold the car, which was owned for less than three years. DCT is needed if the price of the car is above 250 thousand rubles. If a document is lost and cannot be restored, you need to write a corresponding statement and still submit a declaration. And enter the cost of the car into the 3-NDFL declaration from memory.
Our experts have prepared for you other publications devoted to the documents required for the purchase and sale of a vehicle. From them you can find out what a deposit, a receipt, a general power of attorney, and an act of acceptance and transfer are drawn up. You will also be able to find out in what situations the spouses’ consent to a transaction is required and what the dangers of buying a car without documents are.
We conclude a purchase and sale agreement with a car dealership
Typically, car dealerships themselves register the car with the traffic police and then sell it. But there are other schemes.
The car dealership indicated itself as the owner in the title, but the car is not registered with the traffic police.
When purchasing such a car, you must have a purchase and sale agreement, a payment document, a transfer and acceptance certificate, and a contract of acceptance of the car dealership with the previous owner.
The car dealership is an intermediary.
In this case, the dealer sells the car, but legally it still belongs to the former owner. Ask the dealer to show the commission agreement - a document confirming the right to sell the car on behalf of the owner. If there is one, the car dealership sells the car and prepares the documents itself. If legal or technical problems arise during the paperwork, you will have to personally contact the former owner. The dealership automatically declines all liability.
When a car dealership doesn't own the car and doesn't have a commission agreement, it has no rights to sell.
Step-by-step instruction
There are two ways to restore a lost contract:
- obtain a copy of the policy from the other party to the contract or from government agencies;
- renew a new contract for the vehicle.
Getting a copy
If you still have contact information, then first of all you need to contact the other party to the transaction. If the person does not mind and is ready to help, then this is the fastest way to restore the agreement. You make an appointment and make a copy.
If the other participant is in another city, but does not mind providing the service, agree with him how you will pay for the production of the copy, its certification by a notary and postage for shipping.
Attention! The copy must be certified by a notary, otherwise the document will not have legal force.
If you purchased a car at a car dealership or through a law firm, you must contact the manager to obtain a duplicate. To maintain customer loyalty, you will not be denied a copy. Ask to certify the issued document.
If it is not possible to contact the other party to the agreement, you can contact the traffic police and obtain the original. Documents are stored in the archive for at least three years. Write an application requesting the issuance of the agreement and indicate the reason for the need for this issuance (loss, theft, damage or other).
If you submitted the agreement along with the declaration to the tax office, you can try to get a copy from them. But the Federal Tax Service is not obligated to issue copies of documents, so here you can only count on the personal disposition of the employees towards you.
Renegotiation
If it is impossible to obtain a copy, then you need to renew the contract:
- with the other party to the transaction (if she also does not have a contract in hand);
- with a trusted person.
If the contract is lost by both parties, the transaction must be re-concluded. To do this, you need to contact the registration department of the traffic police and complete the document under the supervision of an inspector so that all the data from the previously provided agreement coincides with the new one.
If you receive a refusal from the traffic police, you must make an official request to provide the necessary information for the contract. The application must be registered and after receiving an official response, a new agreement between the partners is drawn up. The new document must be completely identical to the previously drawn up agreement. The date indicated is the one when the car was actually sold, that is, the contract is signed retroactively.
If, after purchasing the car, a compulsory motor liability insurance policy was issued, then after renewing the contract, the policy will be invalid, even when these transactions were carried out within a few days.
In accordance with Article 15 of Federal Law No. 40 of April 25, 2002 , when there is a change of owner, the policy must be reissued . This must be done, since in the event of an accident, the insurance company will study the history of the car and may refuse to pay if violations are detected when applying for a policy.
Main
- Before concluding a contract, check the documents of the owner and the car.
- Check the VIN twice: on the traffic police website and at the dealer.
- It is better to draw up a purchase and sale agreement at the traffic police in order to immediately check the car for the presence of a “double” during registration.
- Record the fact of payment - pay at the bank, through an ATM, take a receipt.
- Don't buy a car from a dealer who doesn't own the car or has a commission agreement. Indicate in the contract only the actual purchase amount.
Photo: unsplash.com, “Behind the wheel”, depositphotos.com
Responsibility for forging a signature
When documents are lost, some try to take an easier route to restore them, using computer programs or forging a signature. Such actions entail criminal liability.
According to Art. 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the use of a forged document threatens the offender with restriction of freedom for a term of up to 1 year, or forced labor for a term of up to 1 year, or imprisonment for a term of up to 1 year.
We talked in more detail about the existing methods of falsifying a vehicle's policy document and the liability provided for such falsifications in a separate article.
