Hi Joseph,

You’ve nothing to fear from a private buyer as long as you stay sensible. Make sure you meet at the buyer’s house, not another location. Check for all necessary paperwork (registration document, previous NCT forms, service history, etc.) and if anything is missing, be suspicious. Ask if the owner would be OK with an independent mechanical inspection, by the AA for instance. If they refuse, again, be suspicious. Make sure you do a history and background check with a service such as Cartell.ie too, which should flag up anything unpleasant.