When you sell a car privately in Australia, the sale isn't finished when the money clears and the buyer drives away. Your state or territory still has the car registered in your name, and it will keep sending you anything that comes with owning it — speeding fines, toll notices, parking infringements.
A notice of disposal is the form that ends that. It tells your transport department you've disposed of the vehicle, who you sold it to, and when. In most states you can lodge it online in a few minutes.
Lodge your notice of disposal. Until it's in, fines and tolls the new owner collects can still land in your name.
What a notice of disposal actually does
It's a change-of-ownership notification from the seller's side. It is separate from the buyer's job of transferring the registration into their own name, and it doesn't depend on them doing it.
That separation matters more than most people realise. If the buyer never gets around to transferring the registration — and plenty don't — your notice of disposal is the only record that you're no longer responsible for the car. Without it, you're relying on a stranger's paperwork to protect you from their driving.
The name varies. It's a notice of disposal in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT; in Queensland and Western Australia it's a disposal notice or the seller's portion of the transfer form. The purpose is the same everywhere.
How long you have, state by state
The deadline is not national, and it is not intuitive. Two jurisdictions give you half the time the others do, and one publishes no deadline at all.
Western Australia — 7 days
Lodge the seller's copy of the vehicle transfer form within seven days. WA states the consequence in dollars — a $100 infringement — which is the only specific figure we could confirm anywhere; other jurisdictions warn that penalties apply without publishing an amount. See the Department of Transport's selling page and form MR9.
Tasmania — 7 days
Notice of disposal within seven days, per Transport Tasmania's selling page.
New South Wales — 14 days
Within fourteen days, online through Service NSW. NSW is blunt about why on its own selling page: until you lodge it, you remain liable for the vehicle.
Victoria — 14 days
Within fourteen days. Transfers are now seller-initiated through myVicRoads — see VicRoads on selling a vehicle.
Queensland — 14 days
Fourteen days for the disposal notice. Lodge it before the buyer attempts their transfer — Queensland's online process is a strict two-step where the seller has to go first. See transferring registration and the rules for selling.
South Australia — 14 days
Notice of disposal (form MR96) within fourteen days, online via mySA GOV or in person.
Northern Territory — 14 days
Within fourteen days. The NT sets out the former owner's responsibilities explicitly.
Australian Capital Territory — no deadline we could find
Access Canberra's page on selling an ACT registered vehicle sets out the notice of disposal, and we could not find a stated deadline for lodging it. That isn't proof there is none — confirm with Access Canberra. Either way, lodge it the day you sell and the question doesn't arise.
The pattern worth remembering: 7 days in WA and Tasmania, 14 days in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA and the NT, and no stated deadline we could find for the ACT. If you can't recall which you're in, lodge it the same day and the question never arises.
What happens if you don't lodge one
Fines and tolls keep coming to you. This is the common one. The car is still registered in your name, so the camera notice arrives at your address. Sorting it out afterwards means paperwork, deadlines and proving a sale you may not have documented.
You may remain liable for the vehicle. Transport for NSW puts it in those terms directly, and Queensland's rules for selling are similarly explicit. Registration carries obligations, and until the record changes, they're yours.
In WA there's a penalty for the omission itself, whether or not anything else went wrong — see the figure above.
The practical defence is the notice of disposal plus a dated receipt naming both parties, the vehicle's VIN and the odometer reading. Between them, they establish who owned the car and from when.
What you need before you lodge it
Have these ready and it takes minutes:
- Your registration or plate number
- The buyer's full name and address
- The date of sale and the sale price
- The odometer reading at handover
- Your own licence or customer number, depending on the jurisdiction
Take the buyer's details from their licence, not from what they tell you. If the name on the licence doesn't match the name they've given you, that is a reason to stop the sale, not a detail to smooth over.
The buyer's side, briefly
Lodging your notice of disposal doesn't transfer the registration — that's the buyer's obligation, and it runs on its own clock with its own deadline and its own late fees, which vary by jurisdiction. Check your state's transport department for the figures that apply to your sale.
Their deadline is theirs. Yours is yours. Don't let a buyer talk you into holding off on your notice so their paperwork lines up more neatly.
What this means if you're selling on MotorLoop
A notice of disposal doesn't change based on where you advertised the car — it's between you and your state. What we can do is make the rest of it less fraught: listing a car on MotorLoop is free, and buyers message you in the app so your phone number stays private until you choose to share it. When the sale is done, mark the listing as sold, then go and lodge your notice of disposal — in that order.