Buying a car for the parental units?

November 8, 2006 3:09 PM

CanadaCarFilter: How do I buy a car for my parents as a surprise?

Can I buy a new car, register, and insure it in their name without my parents being involved? I want to surprise them and just hand over the keys to them. I don't want them to have to pay anything, or do any paperwork. I'm in Alberta if that matters. I'm assuming there will be some sort of tax complications?

posted by blue_beetle to work & money (6 comments total)

I would think a dealership would know what is/isn't possible and would be able to give you a good answer. Surely this must happen with some frequency? Perhaps talk to the dealership from which you might consider buying it?
posted by JMOZ at 4:04 PM on November 8, 2006

Talk to the dealership. I'd be willing to bet, however, that you cannot take anything out in their names unless you posess a power of attorney.

Probably easiest to buy the car (presuming you're buying it outright?), hand them the keys, and then sell it to them for a dollar.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:32 PM on November 8, 2006

You don't need to sell it to them for a dollar, you can just transfer the title to them. They will however have to do some minimal paperwork.

The only way to completely avoid any paperwork for them is to put the car in your name but let them use it.
posted by doomtop at 5:02 PM on November 8, 2006

Some places have a sale clause that outlines that the car must be resold for agreed market value (or something like that), so that you pay the correct amount of sales taxes on it, so I'm not sure if they will let you resell a new car to your parents for a dollar. YMMV, I only know that this is true for where I live in Australia.
posted by cholly at 5:46 PM on November 8, 2006

Because Alberta has no sales tax and GST doesn't apply on private sales the goverment doesn't care how much you sell your car to your parents for.

Unless you use doomtops method, they need to register the car in their name and to do that they'll need insurance. You can use a regular bill of sale [pdf] to transfer the car to them.

If you just give them the car to use and keep everything in your name be aware that your insurance provider should be informed you are not the principle driver and they may want your parents driver's license information.
posted by Mitheral at 6:47 PM on November 8, 2006

No matter what approach you take, they're going to have to at least sign something in order to take ownership.

Here's what I'd do: Buy the car, do all the paperwork (except for signatures) to transfer ownership to your parents, give them the keys, ask for their signatures (perhaps a little later).
posted by winston at 5:34 AM on November 9, 2006