Presumably he's working from home to save the cost of servicing proper premises. I wonder what his neighbours think?

Assuming your satisfied the car is clear of finance and is what it says it is not a clone then your next question is 'what if'.

What if it proves to be a lemon or suffers a catastrophic technical failure a few months into your ownership? Has he got a workshop and the skills to do ANY sort of repair? I guess any warranty will be an insurance policy and probably riven with exclusions and payment limits.

A 'home dealer' might be OK for a cheap hack car - I used to have such a thing as a 'station car'.

£10k is big money. At that level I'd want the reassurance of a dealership likely to be still there in a few months time. Not necessarily a franchise but at least something with a record at company's house.

Four of my most recent purchases have been through traders selling from home. Usually their drive.

They were registered and provided a proper VAT invoice. No problems with the cars and not had to use the three months warranty one of them offered. I asked the right questions and did the usual checks as well as the test drive (alone). I must stress that my purchases were in the shed/bangernomics territory (£1500 or below).

Would I do again. Absolutely.

Would I do the same with a £10k purchase and knowing how complex modern cars are. Probably not.

Edited by Moodyman on 15/11/2021 at 11:34

Hi All. Thanks for the advice. The car is a 2017 facelift Skoda Scout with 110,000 miles @£11.5k.

www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/skoda/skoda-octa.../

HPI/Parkers valuation check says this is near the top end valuation from a dealer - but the car looks and drives immaculate to me, much nicer than others I've seen for similar price (from big dealers). Although some others were older cars with a few less miles.

I would get a 3rd party AA/RAC inspection on it. General tone from here is don't buy it, it seems. Would getting the inspection change anyone's mind?

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Edit: One more point is that I need to buy a car in the next 2 weeks so can't wait around for the best deal ever - so acknowledge a hit on price for the convenience of finding a car I like quickly.

Edited by Harvey Dowd on 15/11/2021 at 13:56

The Scout version has the Haldex 4x4 that has strict servicing requirements (oil/filter every 40k?) - If this hasn't been done walk away. Any repairs usually mega bucks.

Is it auto as well?

Edited by Big John on 15/11/2021 at 23:00

Thanks all for the advice. After a sleepless night agonising about this sale, I've decided not to go ahead. My gut was the guy was honest and this might well be a good option for someone with more experience but clearly I'd be foolish to ignore advice when I have very little. I'll look for something at a more established dealership.