The fact that it's at a storage yard is unexceptional. Our touring caravan lives on such a site and there are half a dozen motor homes stored there. These are though coachbuilt jobbies and too big to use as a second car.

A VW whether based on the Kombi or more recent designs is less of an issue on your drive or around town. The VW Caravelle is pretty common transport for large families.

It sounds a little like something I'm thinking of doing. I'm thinking of buying a camper van and letting my brother in law store, tax and insure it because I have the cash to buy and he has the cash to run it and somewhere more suitable to park it, in return for 50-50 use.

I don't think I'm alone in my thinking as camper vans can be a shared investment, especially if you don't have somewhere to keep it.

Having sold a car which was neither registered to me nor my address, these things can certainly be perfectly true. I sold a car on behalf of my disabled sister who lived 100 miles away, whose forces husband was abroad on duty. She didn't want to have strangers coming to her house where she lived with 3 daughters, particularly considering the fact that the car was a white convertible BMW 3 Series, and probably wasn't going to be looked at by Bernard and Doris.

No doubt some people would have been put off by such a story, but it was true and the person who decided to trust my word bought a decent car for a good price.

The rest of the picture does add up. I've checked on the DVLA site and it's taxed, the MOT history tallies with the advertised mileage and the registration is correct for the vehicle advertised. The seller also seems to know a lot about his particular vehicle's history and since he seems to drive commerical vehicles for a living probably does have family/friends who are in 'the business' and would do such a thing. The photos in the Ad also clearly show the van at a caravan storage site. Also, the seller has been very open and not evasive at all in his replies. All my instincts say genuine, decent bloke (Iknow, I know!)

It's only a £5K vehicle, it's advertised nationally so I doubt it's stolen but obviously a quick HPi check would do no harm. If we did go down to have a look I would of course make sure it starts, stops, steers and runs okay as well as taking my trusty magnet, torch and long bladed screwdriver for poking about in the usual rust spots, check under the oil filler cap for mayo, make sure it doesn't overheat etc etc.

I suppose if we did buy it then we would need the cousin present anyway to sign off the V5? If we saw the cousin's saw photo ID that tallied with the name on the V5 then I guess we could just go ahead and concentrate on the condition of the van itself?

Thanks for all the input so far folks

Seems like a dealer to me.

I recently sold my SIL's car, but I insisted he got a new V5 showing my home address as where it was registered. Not an additional owner, but it gave some confidence to the buyer as to the legitimacy of the sale.