Bill Of Sale Receipt: Fill & Download for Free

“Where is my receipt? Where is it!?”One day I was standing at the customer service counter when a Caucasian woman in her 50s came up to me in visible distress. According to her, the cashier had withheld the sales receipt from her and as such, she would not be able to exit the store. I looked over at my cashier, who was pleasantly ringing up the next customer, and saw two problems : 1. I couldn't reprint the receipt since he had already started the next transaction, and 2. The trash bin was devoid of receipts.So, defuse the situation! This woman is under the impression that she paid for a week's worth of groceries in vain.“Ma'am, I'm sorry that the cashier ‘has your receipt’. You would like to exit the store now, right?”“Well of course! Who would want to spend time in this hell hole?”“No problem ma'am. I'll just call my security and you can rest assured that you can get it safely.”“No but I can't get out without the receipt!” (bear in mind that my store has an open entrance, it is not like Costco with receipt checkers.)As I retrieve the bin and show her, I say, “Ma'am since neither you nor the cashier has the receipt why don't you just head out and security won't bother you.”“Are you kidding me, why are you making me pay for my groceries twice!?!”“Not at all ma'am. You don't need to pay again, you can j-”As this woman pulls out her Ziploc bag of bills, something falls out of her pocket — the receipt.“You need to train your cashiers better. I shouldn't have to pay for my groceries twice whenever I come here.”

“Why don’t people in the UK have bring your kid to work day?”Wait a second, the UK doesn’t have that day?Does that mean that the day when I spent three hours freezing my arse off in the Royal Courts of Justice while two barristers argued before a judge about whether a piece of paper was a “receipt” or a “bill of sale” (I’m still not entirely certain what the difference is) when I was fourteen was just a figment of my imagination?My imagination clearly hates me.Neither the barristers nor the judge were my parents, by the way, but my dad’s clerk thought letting me watch my dad write all day was bordering on child abuse, so the other members of his Chambers were informed that if anyone wanted a teenage girl to ward off the wrath of a judge, master or opponent they could just borrow me from the clerks’ room for as long as needed.I did get a very nice lunch out of it.

It depends on how you handled the sale. Many private sellers fail to execute a bill of sale—big mistake.Let me share how I do it, which should keep you out of trouble.AT A BANKThere are some risks in selling a car in your own driveway by signing the title and letting the buyer drive away. Obviously, in that case, you’d accept only cash, but there are laws about exchanging lots of cash.So, do the sale at the customer service desk of your personal bank.You can download a standard bill of sale online and print a copy, then complete all blanks except for the signatures. Make two if you can, or let the bank copy the completed form.You and the buyer meet at to your bank and sit down with the customer service agent on hand, making sure that person is a notary public—call ahead to make sure a notary will be on duty. Banks provide notary service free to customers.AVOID A RISKY MOMENTAt some point in the sale you have to sign the title over to the buyer and at that moment the car belongs to them—even if they fail to give you the money and sign the bill of sale.But there is no risk if the both of you are sitting at a desk in a bank with security cameras recording you and a notary public witnessing everything. Here are the steps:You hand your title to the bank agent and the seller hands the cash to the agent. A nice feature of this is that your money will be deposited immediately. Another feature is that you can accept a wire transfer from the buyer. This is what I’ve done because the amounts have been high enough—between $21,500 and $37,500—that cash didn’t make sense.The agent makes a photocopy of the bill of sale and then you both sign both copies and have them notarized. The agent gives each of you a copy.Then, and only then, do you sign the title and hand it to the agent.The buyer either hands the cash to the agent or executes a wire transfer.The money goes into your account, either by wire transfer or by the agent counting the cash and depositing it in your account and giving you a receipt.The agent hands the title to the buyer.Back then, we shook hands and left. I guess these days you can bow or elbow-bump.You cannot get in trouble if you do it this way and it will take about 5–10 minutes at the bank.