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Advice

How do I time the purchase of a car with the sale of my old one?

Get things wrong, and you could end up with two cars at once or, worse still, none at all.

Andy Pringle

Words by: Andy Pringle

Published on 12 July 2015 | 0 min read

Juggling the sale of one car with the purchase of another can be very tricky. In an ideal world, you’d just step from one car to the other, but if something goes wrong, you could end up with two cars (and two cars’ costs) at once. In a worse case, you could end up with no car at all.
Naturally, the simplest thing is to part-exchange your old car for your new one, which will mean that effectively the two deals take place at once, and you only ever own one car at a time. If that’s not possible, things could be more difficult. The likelihood is, if you’re going to have to wait for one of the two deals to come through, it’ll be the newer car, so you should try to get a firm date for its arrival from the dealer. If possible, get them to commit to a date in writing. This then gives you a date to work around, and around which you can time the sale of your old car. If there’s a delay in the arrival of your new car and you end up without a car, you can call upon the goodwill of the dealer, asking them to supply you with a courtesy car while you wait for your new car.
  • Top tip – Get the dealer to commit to a date for your new car’s delivery as soon as possible