What to have ready before you list your vehicle

We've written about what a buyer should check before paying for a used vehicle. This is the same list turned around — what a seller should have sorted before the first serious enquiry lands, because the gap between "interested" and "gone cold" is usually filled with exactly these questions, and answering them slowly costs more sales than pricing too high does.

Papers, in one folder

RC, insurance, the latest PUC, and the service book if one exists — physically together, not "somewhere in the house." A buyer who asks to see the RC and watches you search for ten minutes has already started wondering what else is disorganised about the car. If there's a loan that was closed years ago and the RC still shows the bank, start that paperwork now — see how to tell if a vehicle still has a loan on it for exactly what that means — it takes time and a buyer will not wait for it once they've found another car.

The kilometre reading, matched to something

If the odometer and the last service stamp don't roughly agree, a buyer will notice and the conversation gets harder from there, however innocent the explanation is. If you genuinely don't drive much, say so upfront and be ready to explain why — "it was a second car, mostly weekends" is a completely normal and believable answer, but only if you say it before they ask.

Photographs, taken properly, once

• Outside, morning or late afternoon light, never a dark garage — a phone camera in bad light makes a clean car look suspicious.
• All four corners, both sides, straight on, not at an angle that hides a dent.
• The odometer, lit clearly enough to actually read the number in the photo.
• Anything damaged, photographed honestly. A scratch shown upfront is a detail. A scratch discovered at the viewing is a reason to lowball you on everything else too.

A price you can defend

Look at three or four listings for the same model and year in your own town before you post, not what you paid or what you feel it's worth — what actually moves the number is worth reading before you settle on one. A price that's clearly above the market gets you enquiries from people who are going to negotiate hard and distrust everything else about the listing, because the first thing they noticed was wrong.

A decision about what you'll explain, and when

Every vehicle has something — a repainted panel, a gearbox that's slightly notchy in first, a dent that was never fixed. Decide now whether you're mentioning it in the listing or at the viewing. Mentioning it in the listing filters out buyers who'd have walked away at the viewing anyway, which saves you both time. Most sellers who hide something small end up explaining it eventually regardless, just later, angrier, and with less goodwill in the room.

None of this takes more than an evening to put together. It's the evening that decides whether your car sells in a week or sits for two months while you keep saying "let me check and get back to you" to people who've already moved on to the next listing.