Paying the Taxman

Ok so for anyone interested in buying a vehicle that's 15 years or older in Ontario, this is what you have to do: 1- Get the signed Ownerships from the seller along with a bill of sale (if you get along well with the seller, ask him to leave the amount blank...see point 5). 2- Before you transfer it officially in your name at one of the Licensing offices, you need to get your new vehicle insured. The insurance is going to be very anal and say you can't do so until you pass safety and get an appraisal. It's a bitch so you will have to decide if you want to pay tons of money and tow the car around until it's appraised and safetied or break the law and just drive it to a garage illegally . We were lucky to find a mobile appraisal guy and get dealer plates to drive it to a shop. 3 - The appraiser will take pictures and fill out forms and send you the 3-4 page report with pictures in the mail. This will probably take a week so you have time to get it safetied in the meantime. There is no "deadline" to get it licensed after purchase so there is no rush. 4 - Insure the car using the appraisal guy's number. They will take your word for the safety check so you don't need to send anything to them. 5 - Once safetied, bring the ownerships, your insurance info, the bill of sale, an appraisal, the safety results and your license to the license bureau. There you have tons of fees for the license, a Used Vehicle Package and the sales tax. Note that they will charge you sales tax based on the higher amount between the bill of sale and the appraisal (see point 1). The appraisal does NOT need to be from the same insurance guy. In fact, if you know a mechanic, it's better to get it done by them so they can put the value to lower and you therefore pay less tax. It took me lots of phone calls to get all the correct info. I haven't actually gone through with it it yet though so if some of my info is wrong I'll correct it as I find out.