Should I buy a car from a seller who will only meet in a car park?

Treat it as a warning sign, especially for a private sale. Seeing the vehicle at the seller’s stated home or business can help verify identity and reduce fraud risk.

In relation to “Should I buy a car from a seller who will only meet in a car park?”, no single green check proves a used car is a good buy; documentary checks and a physical inspection answer different questions.

For “Should I buy a car from a seller who will only meet in a car park?”, a neutral meeting point removes one useful identity check. If a private seller refuses any reasonable way to verify where they live or why the car is registered elsewhere, be prepared to walk away.

For “Should I buy a car from a seller who will only meet in a car park?”, keep a dated receipt and evidence of the keeper change. The exact transfer time can be useful if parking, toll, tax or enforcement correspondence appears later.

For “Should I buy a car from a seller who will only meet in a car park?”, this answer is written for a Northern Ireland user, but some vehicle-registration, consumer-credit and insurance functions operate on a UK-wide basis. The attached sources — GOV.UK - Buy a vehicle: step by step, GOV.UK - Vehicle registration: new and used vehicles, and nidirect - Contact Consumerline — are therefore deliberately mixed where the responsible authority is UK-wide. That is more accurate than forcing every point into an NI-only source.

Practical next step for “Should I buy a car from a seller who will only meet in a car park?”: do not pay until this point has been independently checked. Save the advert, seller messages and any official or commercial check so you can show exactly what information you relied on.