How to sell a fleet of vans: the operator's playbook

If you’re sitting on a fleet you need to clear, end of contract, end of project, end of patience, you’re solving a different problem to the bloke selling his Mum’s old Berlingo. You don’t need a slick consumer website. You need:

1. One number for the lot.
2. A collection plan that doesn’t disrupt the yard.
3. Paperwork that survives a VAT inspection.
4. Funds in the bank, ideally in one transfer, ideally this week.

Here’s how to make that happen, fast.

Step 1: triage by category

Before you talk to a buyer, sort the fleet into three buckets:

• Retail-grade, sub-100k miles, sub-5 years old, MOT, decent condition. These will get the best price through the auction halls or via direct sale to other fleet operators. Don’t waste them on scrap.
• Trade / salvage-grade, 100-250k miles, mechanically sound, possibly tired body. These are the bulk of any defleeting fleet. Salvage networks (us included) compete hard for them.
• Scrap / non-runner, past it, or written off, or sat for years. These are scrap value, but at fleet volumes the per-vehicle price is still respectable.

We can quote across all three. Some fleet sellers split, retail to auction, the rest to us. That’s fine.

Step 2: get a written fleet quote, not per-vehicle

This is the bit most fleet operators get wrong. They get individual quotes on each van and then chase the buyer to honour them at collection. Don’t. Get a single line-item quote for the entire fleet, signed off, with pricing held for at least 14 days. We do this, most cash-buyer sites won’t.

What we need from you to quote: a CSV of regs and postcodes, a one-line condition note per vehicle, and confirmation of who owns each (Ltd company, finance, leased, etc.).

Step 3: routing

If your fleet is in one yard, that’s a one-day collection. If it’s spread across three depots, it’s a three-day plan. We sort the routing and tell you when each truck arrives. Your yard manager just needs to know to expect us.

For volume above ~20 vehicles, we’ll usually spread collection over a working week to avoid blocking your yard for hauliers and customers.

Step 4: paperwork

Per-vehicle V5s, per-vehicle DVLA notification, single VAT-correct invoice to the trading entity. We do all of this, you sign one master agreement, we handle the per-vehicle admin. If your bookkeeper wants per-vehicle invoicing instead, we can do that too, just say which.

For Ltd-company VAT-registered sellers selling VAT-qualifying vans, the sale is normally VAT-able and we pay gross. For non-qualifying or non-VAT-registered sellers, no VAT, and the gross is the net.

Step 5: payment

Single bank transfer to the company account. Cleared funds typically within 48 hours of collection completion (we wait until every vehicle is off your premises and the paperwork is done, both sides protected).

What this looks like in practice

A regional plumbing operator we worked with last quarter had 23 mixed Transits and Caddies aged 2014-2019 to defleet ahead of a switch to electric. Single quote, £43,200 for the lot. Two-day collection across two depots. Single transfer. Their finance team had it booked into the journal before the last truck left the yard.

That’s the pattern. Talk to fleet, get a number, agree a date. Done in a fortnight.

How to start

Send a brief on the fleet page, business, fleet size, postcode, vehicle types, or WhatsApp us straight away. For real volume, WhatsApp is faster.