I sold my Motorbike today. It's a sad, and happy, day.

2009-07-02 764 words 4 minutes

Contents

Amazing it went relatively smoothly. First, we go to the Beijing 2nd Hand Automobile market located South West 4th ring road. After being told by a few people there that motorbikes couldn’t be handled here, we found the Beijing Vehicle Management Center. Second, I had to take the motorbike around the back to the “inspection” hall where they would inspect it. It turns out they just verified I owned it, my paperwork was in order, and that was it. Cars had to take their plates off. Not our my motorbike, just left it on. I then proceeded to park in the underground parking. Third, we had to check if I had any outstanding fines on the bike. Nope! Normally, one would pay 35 RMB at this step. Not us. Maybe because we’re not selling a car, but a motorbike? Forth, we had to make tons of photocopies. Basically everything official had to be photocopied, at 1RMB per sheet. A major scam. Passports, resident slips, the car registration book, etc. Everything. Fifth, we filled out one of their stock contracts. This was the official sales contract between me, the seller, and Ionut, the Buyer. I suppose I could take this to court if Ionut didn’t pay (he did). Sixth, we get a number and wait… only 2 minutes, and go to a window, give everything to the lady to process everything. At this point, I was expecting them to have an accessor look at my bike and declare an official value for the vehicle (so they could assess a 2.5% processing fee). I read this process step in a few online sites. But they didn’t. What they did do is look at the original sales receipt (fa piao) which had the accessed value from 5 years ago (I am surprised I still had this!!), and the amount paid for the sale (240 RMB or thereabouts). Then the computer did some magic and determined we had to pay 100 RMB for the transfer. Not too bad. It was here that we got the official change of ownership document. It is technically no longer my bike. Seventh, So we go to another window, pay the 100 RMB, and get all our papers and documents back. We then go upstairs where they handle the reprinting of the registration booklets, issuance of new plates, etc. They don’t do motorbikes! So, we had to go to the Beijing Traffic Bureau HQ at South-East 4th Ring Road (where we would go for getting our Driver’s Licenses, plates, etc.) and get it taken care of then. Eighth, we go to the Traffic Bureau HQ. We go to the foreigner office (lucky no line!) and are told we need more photo copies and we had to get the motorbike photographed. Ninth, we go outside, drive the motorbike to the place to get it photographed (on the grounds of the Bureau). They wanted to charge 20 RMB to take the plates off, and another 20 RMB to have it photographed, but we opted to take the plates off ourselves. No choice about the fee for taking the photographs though. At this step, they also did an imprint of the VIN, or frame number. A photograph and this VIN number imprint were pasted on a slip and we went back to the foreigner office of the Bureau. Tenth, they told us we needed to get a chop on this paper to make it “official”, so we had to go to the main hall of the building, have it looked at, and chopped. 5 minutes only. Eleventh, back at the foreigner office of the Traffic Bureau, I handed over my old plates (tears) and registration booklet. We paid another fee (85 RMB or something), and 5 minutes later, the officer came back with new Yellow 京A plates. Yellow!!! Unfortunately, black plates, which I had, are no longer issued for foreigners. We aren’t special anymore. Oh well. And there you have it. A simple, easy to follow 4+ hour procedure on how to transfer ownership of a motorcycle in Beijing! Now, that was easy!