This question is always a difficult one to answer. It is asked by almost everyone who approaches Simply Registrations with a number plate they wish to sell. Whilst there are definitely some influential factors such as price and desirability, until a buyer is prepared to part with their hard-earned money and commit to the purchase, you just never know.

Many years of buying and selling private number plates has taught me this business can make you look foolish. As an example; I bought the registration BEN 962 many years ago expecting to sell it fairly quickly for a modest profit. It sold in December 2012 for a modest profit; however I had it in stock for over seven years. In contrast, less than three weeks ago I purchased the registrations 79 SD & SHC 7 expecting to have them in stock for the average length of time which tends to be two to three years. 79 SD sold within days of me buying it and we have just taken a part-payment against SHC 7.

Influential Factors

The asking price is likely to have some impact on how long a personalised plate takes to sell, but it doesn’t always just come down to price. We currently have 9 JSE in stock, probably the lowest priced single-digit JSE plate on the market. However that doesn’t necessarily mean that 9 JSE will sell before 5 JSE or JSE 7 which are also for sale, albeit with higher asking prices. If Jason S Edwards is looking for a cherished registration and he was born on the 5^th of March, it is likely that 5 JSE would be his first choice.

The desirability of the registration should also have some bearing on how quickly it sells, or doesn’t sell as the case may be. The initials AJB or SMC are much more popular than combinations such as VGR or HBN. But if Helen B Nelson has just bought herself a brand new car and is eager to get a private plate for it, you may just get lucky if you have an HBN registration for sale.

Spreading the Word

If you want to stand a good chance of selling your number plate you’ve got to let potential buyers know that it is for sale. We promote the Simply Registrations website at every opportunity and advertise regularly in selected motoring publications such as What Car? Motor Sport and Auto Express. We also circulate our entire stock of personalised registrations among the trade which often results in other trusted dealers selling our stock via their websites or advertisements.

Common sense suggests that a registration which can be found on dealer websites, in adverts within car magazines and maybe even listed on Ebay will stand a better chance of selling than one which is photographed and carefully placed inside a newsagent’s window.

My fifteen years of buying and selling private number plates suggests you should allow at least two, or maybe even three years to sell a personalised registration. There will always be external forces at work which may help or hinder the sale of your plate, whilst price and desirability could also influence timescales. If you have a registration that you are considering selling, you may find this guide useful which provides further details on how to sell a private number plate.

Big brother is watching – are you at risk of being ‘named and shamed’ using your registration plate as identification?

As modern technology becomes ever more sophisticated, many people are now feeling that ‘Big Brother’ is closing in. First we had CCTV recording our every move, then Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras (ANPR) and now motorists have another arch enemy in the shape of that well-known car enthusiast, Jeremy Clarkson. Never known for his lack of opinions or shy and retiring ways, the Top Gear presenter has now taken to tweeting the registration plate details of bad drivers on the roads of Britain – but is he right to publicly declare both your bad driving habits and your unique car number plate?

Registration details are by their very nature in the public domain, used to put an individual identification stamp on every car on the road – but how would you feel if you checked your Twitter account one day to see that this well-known figure had declared you a terrible driver to all of his followers? Admitting to getting instant satisfaction from shaming drivers who commit a driving faux pas around him, Clarkson takes to the popular social media platform, Twitter, to point out their mistakes and publish the make of car and its number plate – often alongside his own pearls of wisdom on how their driving could be improved.

Some examples of his tweets include:

“Are you in Roehampton driving a yellow van reg M******? Oh dear, you’re not very good at it are you.”

“Silver Lexus P***** on the A3 this morning. Drop back from the car in front and you won’t have to brake every three seconds.”

Outing stupid drivers – or an unfair declaration of an innocent mistake?

According to Clarkson, this is the perfect way of outing stupid drivers while avoiding libel laws, something he admits that he can’t do in his magazine column – but does he really have the right to target individuals in this way? Clarkson feels that humiliating these drivers will make them think twice about their poor performance behind the wheel, especially when it could be dangerous to other road users. However, it also means that over 995,000 people who follow him on Twitter will know that you’ve irritated this defiant TV personality so much that he felt the need to vent his grievance publicly.

From a legal point of view, everybody is entitled to express an opinion online even if it also includes details of your registration – but it certainly won’t stop the drivers that he targets feeling pretty fed up at having been outed! This off-road rage also comes at a time where motorists whose cars are fitted with dash-cams are also taking it upon themselves to upload video footage of bad driving onto YouTube.

Do you agree with Clarkson?

The Internet has seen the world become a much smaller place and with the possibility of having your poor driving habits highlighted across the World Wide Web, could this actually act as some kind of deterrent to those who take unnecessary risks with their own and other drivers lives? Where do you stand on this latest development? How would you feel if a video or tweet was published, pulling you up on your driving performance? Is this a case of Big Brother going one step too far? Or is it a reasonable reaction to being tailgated or pressured on the road? Also, if you own a personalised registration plate, does this make you feel more vulnerable, due to you being more easily recognised through this kind of defamation?

You can follow Jeremy Clarkson via: https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson