Saturday, November 27, 2010

How To Avoid Buying A Stolen Car

By Thomas Standing


Before buying a second hand vehicle, you should check its history. Every year thousands of people end up losing the vehicle that they have brought and the money that they paid for it because the vehicle has been stolen or has an outstanding debt against it.

The police search for stolen cars constantly and are arresting car-stealing gangs all the time; if the car you brought was stolen, the police will take the car off of you and give it back to its previous owner. That means that you lose the car and the money that you paid for that car. This will happen even if you can prove that you are innocent and did not know the car was stolen when you paid for it.

If you buy a car that has a debt against it, then at any time a debt collection agency could come along and take the vehicle off you. Sometimes you can get it back, but will have to spend time and money proving that you did not know about the outstanding finance when you brought it and are an innocent party.

In the UK, you can find out a lot about a car, for free, by using the DVLA's on-line checking service. Simply by typing in the make of the car and its registration plate you can find out its year of manufacture, date of first registration, engine capacity, colour, how much road tax it has and the vehicles excise duty rate. You can also call the DVLA, but calls to make vehicle checks are charged at a premium rate, so check the current rate before doing so. It may be cheaper for you to pay a private company to get the details for you.

DVLA data will show you if the owner is being honest about the age of the vehicle and allow you to find out if the vehicle has had to been re-sprayed for some reason. If a car's make and model do not tie up with its registered details it is possible that the car has been stolen and given a false registration plate.

To be sure, that the car you are buying has not been stolen, previously written off nor has money owed on it use one of the many vehicle check companies. Not all companies check every aspect of a car's history, so be sure that all three issues are looked for by the company you chose to carry out your check.




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