Fancy buying a used car for a lot less than you might normally pay? It’s possible but with catches: you’ll need to do some work to find the car you’re after. If you do discover a motor made for you, it may be slightly damaged. And it will almost certainly have an “interesting” history.
More people than ever are choosing to buy cars that have been seized and then re-sold by the authorities, often using either the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) or the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).
You can get some real bargains
I spotted a 2018 Audi SQ5 Quattro on the RAW2K Vehicle Auctions website. It was deep metallic blue, had done only 31,000 miles and I could overlook its “bling” side steps for an initial high bid of £13,600. For comparison, on a popular sales website, a similar 68-reg SQ5 that had done 57,000 miles was selling for £28,320. Others were £30,000-plus.
With half an hour of its auction to run, the SQ5’s price remained encouragingly low. Then the sale lit up. Increasing in increments of anything from £10 to £200, bidding eventually stopped at £17,310. Including VAT plus the 6 per cent buyer’s premium and £25 release fee, the total cost was £22,048 – so at least £6,000 cheaper than buying a similar example from a dealer.
At the same time, a 2019 Citroen Relay 35 van that had done 48,000 miles was going through. Bidding started at £180 and it eventually sold for £3,260 (£4,248 including VAT and fees). Although tatty around the edges, that’s still only about two thirds of the price of a much higher mileage version on a van sales site.
There are big savings to be made
On the face of it, an Audi with structural damage for 20 per cent less than a cheap “legit” one might not look that appealing. But it starts to make sense provided you can carry out any remedial work yourself. And in terms of “seizure bargains”, the Audi looks like an outlier; the Citroen more usual.
Mark Bennett, head of RAW2K, told us: “Typically you can get a car for 60 per cent of its CAP value [the guide most dealers use]. Some will have a full MOT, be in very good condition and have a standard mileage.
“We get a lot of private individuals buying and fixing them up as a side hustle, plus businesses which turn them round and sell them.” And with seizures frequently being high-end models from prestigious makes such as BMW, Audi and Bentley, they can be an attractive potential money maker.
Addison Pye, the director of auctioneer John Pye and Sons, revealed: “We’re selling more vehicles on behalf of the government and police authorities each year, both due to increased supply as well as our success in securing government contracts.”
But there are catches…
If you’re considering going down the route of buying a police seizure, it’s not all cheap cars for no effort.
The Audi I was interested in was a Category S write-off, so requires professional repair before it can be legally put back on the road. And since these are online auctions, the website is clear that you can’t see the cars in the metal – let alone drive them – before bidding.
Also, both the Audi and Citroen were located in Preston, so not particularly convenient for where I live on the south coast. And if you win the auction, the cars cannot be driven away so you need to arrange transport to your home or workshop.
But at least both cars had keys with them, which isn’t always the case. Bennett said: “You’d think we must have the keys but actually about 50 per cent of the cars we sell don’t. They often get lost in the process [by the police] or perhaps the car’s owner wants to be a nuisance and throws them away.”
Cars will also have a variety of damage. Bennett added: “Some will be clean, others will have minor damage, some major. But it’s often just cosmetic bumper damage or similar.”
Where do cars seized by the police end up for sale?
There are a number of auction houses that feature sales of vehicles seized by the authorities. RAW2K disposes of seized cars from 26 of the UK’s 45 police forces. According to Bennett, around 18,000 cars a year go through its sites around the country, about 95 per cent of them being police seizures.
John Pye and Sons works with more than 25 police and government authorities. These seizure contracts make up around 75 per cent of the 15,000 vehicles it sells annually and the number is growing.
Some police forces even have their own Ebay shops for selling POCA seizures and other surplus equipment. Sussex Police, for example, had a set of Skoda Octavia locking wheel nuts for £10, although it doesn’t sell complete cars this way. “Cars that can be re-sold as working go through Brightwells (auctions),” a spokesperson told us.
How can police sell stolen cars?
Pye explained: “POCA enables authorities to seize and sell assets, including vehicles, that are linked to criminal activity. This can happen through confiscation orders (after conviction) or civil recovery (without conviction).
“John Pye auctions sells these vehicles on behalf of UK law enforcement agencies, such as the police, HMRC and the National Crime Agency (NCA). The proceeds from these sales are typically reinvested into crime prevention, law enforcement or public services.”
Auction houses also get vehicles that are taken as evidence through PACE but are never reclaimed. And, of course, as these vehicles come via the police, you’re never going to buy a cloned car from one of these auctions. There can be downsides, however. “We did have one car that had a turtle in a tank in its boot,” Bennett said. “And vans tend to have lots of rubbish in them.”
The auction houses clear out personal belongings and retain personal belongings such as driving licences and bank cards in case they are reclaimed. But they do draw a line: “Cars with needles from drug users in them are crushed, as is any vehicle that’s got blood splattered around it,” Bennett said.