Selling a car to a wrecker: NSW and Victoria

The car failed its inspection at a workshop in Lavington, or the head gasket let go on the way back from Rutherglen and it has been sitting behind the shed at Culcairn ever since. Either way two questions arrive together. What will a wrecker actually pay, and who is left holding the paperwork if the yard tows it away and nothing else happens.

The second question is the one that costs money later, and on this border it is the one most often got wrong, because the car and the yard are regularly in different states. A vehicle registered in Wodonga can be standing in a licensed yard in Albury fifteen minutes after crossing the Lincoln Causeway. At that point two regulators are in play. The yard answers to the state it operates in. The registration answers to the state that issued it. Those two sets of rules do not line up, and the gap between them is where the fines land.

What a wrecker is actually buying

An offer on a scrap car is two numbers added together, and only one of them is about the car.

The first is the shell. Once the fluids are drained and the battery, tyres and catalytic converter come off, what remains is a body of mixed steel sold by weight to a metal merchant. Kerb weights run from roughly a tonne for a small hatch to close to two tonnes for a dual cab ute, so a heavy vehicle starts from a higher floor for reasons that have nothing to do with whether it runs.

No government body publishes a scrap steel price. Yards take theirs from whatever their downstream buyer is paying that week, and that price moves with export demand. Any dollar figure printed in a guide would be out of date before it was read. The workable method is to ring two yards on the same morning and ask each to quote the weight separately from the parts, then compare the two halves rather than the total.

The second number is the parts, and this is where sellers guess wrong most often. A wrecker is not paying for rarity. It is paying for turnover. A shelf full of doors and alternators earns nothing until somebody walks in wanting one, and the person walking in is usually running a common car. Across the Riverina and the Ovens and Goulburn valleys that means work utes, farm hacks and the high volume sedans and hatches that filled the driveways of Wagga Wagga and Shepparton for twenty years. A tidy door skin off a model that sold in the tens of thousands moves within the month. The same panel off a rare European sits in the rack for years, and the yard prices it accordingly, which usually means it does not price it at all.

Two other things move the number, and neither is negotiable:

• Distance. Most yards quote free pickup inside a radius. A car at Holbrook, Tocumwal or Bright is often outside it, and the tow comes out of the offer rather than being added on top.
• Completeness. A car missing its engine, wheels or catalytic converter is worth close to bare scrap weight. A car with both sets of keys, a readable compliance plate and an intact interior is worth pulling apart properly.

The cash in the advertisement is not legal

Every second listing still promises cash. In both states that promise is either out of date or an admission.

In New South Wales, paying cash for scrap metal has been an offence since 1 March 2017 under section 12 of the Scrap Metal Industry Act 2016. Separately, a business holding a motor vehicle recycler licence under the Motor Dealers and Repairers Act 2013 must not buy a vehicle or a part with cash or with a cheque. That second rule is stricter than the scrap metal rule, and it is the one that applies to a yard in Albury or Wagga Wagga taking a whole car.

In Victoria the ban came in on 30 May 2018 through the scrap metal provisions of the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989. Consumer Affairs Victoria states the rule plainly: a dealer must not pay or receive cash for scrap metal. Payment must be a cheque that is not transferable and not payable to cash, or an electronic funds transfer through a bank or authorised deposit-taking institution, with e-currency specifically excluded. The definition of scrap metal reaches the whole vehicle, covering "a motor vehicle sold or obtained as scrap whether or not it is in working condition, and the body, engine or chassis of a motor vehicle sold or obtained as scrap".

The Victorian penalty for buying or selling scrap metal for cash is 200 penalty units, with an on-the-spot fine of 12 penalty units. A Victorian penalty unit is $209.10 for 2026-27, which puts the maximum at $41,820 and the on-the-spot fine at $2,509.20. Those unit values are set annually and are indexed, so the dollar figures move every 1 July even when the penalty unit count does not.

So the practical position on both sides of the Murray is the same. The money arrives by bank transfer, usually while the truck is still in the driveway, and a yard that offers to peel notes off a roll is telling the seller something useful about how it keeps the rest of its records.

The identification the yard has to take

Sellers are sometimes surprised to be asked for a driver licence over a car worth a few hundred dollars. The yard is not being difficult. It is meeting a record-keeping obligation that exists because scrap yards are the natural exit route for stolen vehicles and stolen metal.

In New South Wales a licensed motor vehicle recycler keeps a register, and entries must be made within one business day of any transaction. Registers must be kept for six years after the last entry. For parts received the recycler records the name, address and licence number of the person who supplied it.

In Victoria a registered second-hand dealer must sight proof of identity: one form carrying a photograph, such as a passport, driver licence or firearms licence, or two forms without a photograph, such as a birth certificate or a citizenship certificate. Consumer Affairs Victoria is explicit that the dealer "must refuse to accept the goods if the person is unable to produce it, unless an exemption applies". On a scrap metal purchase the dealer also records an accurate description including quantity or weight, the seller's name, address and identification details, the date and time received, and a copy of the cheque or the electronic funds transfer.

That last item is worth noting. The payment record is part of the compliance file, which is another reason the cash offer has disappeared from legitimate yards. There is no way to file a copy of a handful of notes.

The paperwork the seller has to do

This is the part no yard does on the seller's behalf, and the part that produces the phone call two years later about a toll notice from the M5.

If the car is registered in New South Wales

A notice of disposal is lodged by the seller through Service NSW, and it should go in immediately after the vehicle changes hands rather than at the end of the week. Service NSW is direct about the consequence: the seller cannot be held responsible for parking or driving fines the buyer incurs unless the notice was submitted promptly. Lodging it requires the seller's NSW driver licence or photo card, the vehicle's registration details, the buyer's driver licence details or motor dealer business details, the sale date, and the higher of the sale price or market value.

The phrase "motor dealer business details" is the reason to ask the yard for its licence number before the truck leaves. A recycler that cannot produce one on the spot has just become a problem for the notice of disposal.

Registration transfer carries a 14 day clock and late fees apply beyond it, but a car being dismantled is usually not transferred at all. It is cancelled. Cancelling registration is done at a Service NSW Centre with the completed form, the registration certificate, proof of identity and the number plates. Plates are handed in at that point. A seller who wants to keep a personalised combination has to place it in reserve, and additional fees apply.

Cancelling also opens the refund. The unused portion of motor vehicle tax is refundable on a Request for refund of NSW registration form, and compulsory third party insurance is refunded separately by the insurer, calculated from the cancellation date. Where a vehicle has been written off by an insurer it goes onto the NSW Written-Off Vehicle Register, registration is cancelled, and the plates must be brought to a Service NSW Centre within 14 days. A police event number substitutes for plates that were lost or stolen.

One more step that costs nothing and saves a great deal of irritation: remove the registration from any toll account and take the tag out of the car before it goes.

If the car is registered in Victoria

Victoria works differently, and the difference matters most to people who assume the NSW process applies because the yard is in NSW. It does not. The registration follows the state that issued it.

Victoria has no seller-lodged notice of disposal equivalent to the NSW transaction. Consumer Affairs Victoria describes a private sale as both parties signing a transfer of registration form, with the buyer sending that form and the roadworthy certificate to VicRoads within 14 days. The seller's protection is discretionary rather than routine: CAV advises that a seller with any concerns "can notify VicRoads of the transfer in writing", enclosing a copy of the transfer form. On a car going to a wrecker, that letter is the only thing standing between the seller and whatever happens next, so it should be treated as compulsory even though it reads as optional.

There is also a trap specific to registered Victorian vehicles. CAV states that a Certificate of Roadworthiness less than 30 days old must be provided when selling a registered vehicle. A car headed for dismantling will not pass one. The clean route is to cancel the Victorian registration and return the plates first, so that what is sold is an unregistered vehicle and no roadworthy certificate is in question.

Registration refunds in Victoria are administered by VicRoads rather than Consumer Affairs Victoria. VicRoads' own pages could not be retrieved while this guide was written, so no Victorian refund figure or method is quoted here. The principle holds in both states regardless: the refund follows cancellation, not the sale. A car handed over while still registered generally leaves that money behind.

New South Wales and Victoria side by side

Telling a licensed yard from a backyard one

In New South Wales the test takes ten seconds at the gate. A licensed motor vehicle recycler must display a sign showing its business licence details at the registered place of business, and that sign must be visible to everyone approaching the business. No sign is not an oversight. NSW licences can be checked at verify.licence.nsw.gov.au before making the call.

Victoria has no equivalent sign, so the check happens online. Which register depends on what the yard does, and the distinction is genuinely useful. A business that buys vehicles from the public intending to dismantle them and sell the parts or the scrap needs a motor car trader licence, and Consumer Affairs Victoria notes it is an offence to run that business unlicensed. A yard that buys only exempt vehicles, or only written-off, incomplete or damaged vehicles that can never return to the road, or that deals exclusively in parts, can operate on second-hand dealer registration alone. So a Wangaratta or Shepparton operation taking a car that still drives should appear on the motor car trader register. One that only takes wrecks should appear on the second-hand dealer register. Appearing on neither is the answer to the question.

The fees explain why the shortcut exists. Victoria's combined motor car trader application and first annual licence fee is $2,965.20 for 2026-27, non-refundable. Second-hand dealer registration is $371.30. In NSW a new motor vehicle recycler licence is $693 for one year, $1,528 for three or $2,359 for five, with a discount for applying online, and renewal at one year is $506. Those NSW figures are current as at August 2026 and may increase in line with CPI at the start of each financial year, as may the Victorian fees. Licensing is a real annual cost, which is precisely what an unlicensed operator is avoiding, and the same instinct tends to apply to record-keeping and to what happens to the registration afterwards.

Before the truck arrives

Ring two yards on the same morning and ask each for the weight and the parts figure separately. Ask for the NSW licence number or the Victorian register entry, and write it down, because the notice of disposal will want it. Take both sets of keys out and photograph the odometer, the compliance plate and the vehicle identification number, then photograph the car on the tilt tray as it leaves.

Then do the registry step the same day, not the same month. In NSW that is the notice of disposal, followed by cancelling registration and handing in the plates. In Victoria it is cancelling registration and returning the plates before the car goes, and a letter to VicRoads with a copy of the transfer form if it did not. Related listings are at wreckers, car removal and scrap metal recyclers, including yards in Albury, Wodonga and Wagga Wagga.

The car stops being the seller's problem when the registry says so, not when the tow truck turns the corner.

Sources

Checked on 2026-08-25. Government fees and rules are indexed and revised, so open the source before you rely on a figure.

• service.nsw.gov.au
• nsw.gov.au
• verify.licence.nsw.gov.au
• consumer.vic.gov.au