We have finally sold our motorbike, hurrah! Mind you it's a wonder we didn't have a nervous break down with the total lunacy of the selling policy here.
We had to go to the Noter with an interpreter, the buyer and a Turkish friend (invaluable!!) to sign the bike over to the buyer, taking all the relevant paperwork. So we all assembled at the Noter and completed some of the paperwork, only to be told that we needed a green paper from the tax office to prove that there were no outstanding debts on the bike, [that's new].
Well David said "No problem "and shot off to the tax office only to be told that we owed a year's tax!! No we did not, but no green paper, come back tomorrow!! Next day, still "No", we had paid through the bank so went there, they gave us official receipts and we went back to the tax office. "No, you have not paid, you have Bank problem" they said. Back to the bank, our rep there spent nearly an hour on the phone being given the run around but she finally said that it should all be ok by either Friday or Monday. Needless to say it wasn't Friday, but fortunately the buyer was very understanding, and we let him take the bike after he paid half the money, and we kept the documents. He wanted to tune the engine and play; he also promised not to ride it on a road till we sorted out the papers.
Monday came and we went off to the tax office again where now it was agreed we had paid the Tax, yippee, however we could not have a green form!! Why not we asked. They shrugged as only tax men can, time to phone our Turkish friend. He spoke to them and then us. The tax man was saying we had a traffic fine, we asked for the date of it, they didn't know but thought maybe early May? We asked what it was for, more shrugging, so we asked how much? How strange, exactly the same as a years Tax......... add to this that the bike hadn't been out of the drive since March and you can see something emerging here! With no choice we had to pay and set off for the Noter to meet the buyer, interpreter and our friend yet again, third time lucky we hoped. All was going well then they asked for our tax number, we gave it to them, but no they wanted to see the little bit of cardboard it was originally written on. It took the interpreter and our friend nearly an hour to convince them of the error of their ways. Then we, the sellers, were charged tax for selling it, the buyer was charged tax for buying it and the interpreter seemed to get paid by everyone but it was finally SOLD.
This had taken us 10 days to achieve. The buyer now just has to go to the Aydin police to get the documents changed to his name, we wish him joy of that. Our Turkish friend said he would help him. We haven't heard the outcome but that was a week ago now. Mike the buyer said he'll come for coffee once he can drive it legally, but it's a four day bank holiday for Bayram now so we won't put the kettle on just yet. Meanwhile we have someone investigating the mysterious traffic fine and they are quizzing the police about that. We don't expect it will result in our money being refunded though.
Next time we have a vehicle to sell we may well push it off a cliff, it would be easier, cheaper and less stressful. T.I.T.
