Getting paid, in the right order

Accepted is not cleared

A bank accepting a cashier’s check is not the same as that check being good.

The funds often show up in a day or two.

The forgery can surface well after that.

Then the money comes back out of your account and the vehicle is gone.

That single gap is what most private-sale payment fraud relies on. It is not exotic and it is not rare.

The order that protects you

Follow it even when the buyer seems entirely trustworthy. Most people who get caught out thought so too.

• Agree the terms and write them down.
• Money settles first. Not sent, not accepted — settled, in a form your bank confirms is final.
• Sign the title and the bill of sale together.
• Hand over keys, both copies, and anything promised.
• File whatever notice your state has, the same day.

Where to meet, and what each place actually solves

These are two different problems. Most places only solve one.

• The buyer’s own bank — solves the money. Staff can confirm an instrument is genuinely drawn on that bank, and cash gets counted by a machine on camera. It does nothing about a test drive.
• A police or sheriff safe exchange zone — solves the meeting. Marked, camera-covered, usually free and open at any hour. Nobody there can tell you whether a check is good.
• A tag or title agency, or the state office — solves the paperwork. You meet where the transfer actually happens, so the title work is done before you part.
• A busy, lit retail parking lot — solves the meeting, loosely. Cameras, people, and nothing else.

Doing the money at a bank and the handover at an exchange zone is two stops, and plenty of people make both.

Whatever you pick, pick it yourself. A place chosen by the other person, at an hour that suits nobody, is a condition you accepted rather than one you chose. There is a page on meeting safely with the rest.

Do not skip ahead

Almost every bad private-sale story contains the same sentence.

They seemed fine, so I let them take it and we sorted the rest out later.

The order above exists because pleasant people are not the exception to it.

A closing checklist

Ours is five numbered sections in the order above, with the payment warning as a callout rather than a footnote. Free, no account.