With an increasingly aging population, the sad reality is that more people are passing away. Even funeral homes are seeing the surge in numbers (and yes, Covid is not helping). As a result, dealers are being asked by bereaved families to buy vehicles, once owned by the deceased.

There are pitfalls to this, of course. The first and most important one is ‘who has the legal authority to sell a vehicle to a dealer when the owner has died’.

When a person dies, their assets can be dealt with in any number of ways. If a vehicle was owned jointly, say by a husband and wife, and the husband dies, all the widow has to do is go to a licence office and have the vehicle registered to her name (they will need proof of death like a death certificate).

If the deceased had a Will, then you need to see that and a death certificate. It is best to wait until the Will has been formally ‘probated’ which means a court has approved the Will as genuine and effective. The “Executor” under the Will or “Administrator with a Will” is the person who can sign the contract and legally sell the vehicle to you. Keep a copy of the documents in your file.

If the person died without a Will, then the family will need to obtain a Court Order appointing someone as the “Administrator without a Will” who can act to sell Estate assets, like vehicles, to folks like you. Obviously you will need to see that Court Order. Again, we suggest you keep a copy in your file.

n any case, it is not advisable to make payment to individuals in such a case. Payment should be made to “The Estate of the Deceased”. It is the job of the Executor or Administrator to then take the funds and distribute them to beneficiaries in accordance with the Will or other legal entitlements.

A dealer is not in a position to make those assessments, which is why you should never make payments to individual family members, spouses, children and so on. If you make wrong decisions, you could be faced with angry beneficiaries, or worse, lawsuits.