Selling and buying shotguns privately

bmcm71

I've just sold one of my guns and bought a replacement both privately. Before I go in to my local station and confuse the firearms officer I wonder does anyone know how this will work. I've got a letter of sale for the gun I'm buying so I want to do a sub but should I wait until the lad buying my gun makes his application. Problem there is (I'm told) that guards won't issue a new license to him unless I cancel the old (which I don't want to do)!!!! Confused yet??? Think I need some of those magical letter the guards are printing for some of ye.

Sparks

There's nothing in the law that says you can't have two or more people holding licences for the same firearm - in fact, some parts of the law like the training licence require it.

The only way that really makes sense for this to work for you is if you keep your licence for now, the buyer gets his licence for the firearm, you hand it over to him, then you cancel your licence. Other approaches risk the situation where either you or the buyer will be in possession of an unlicenced firearm, even if only temporarily.

bmcm71

OK, I sold another gun last year and the guard at the buyers station said he couldn't issue the license to him until I cancelled mine but you're right I see your point. I'll let the buyer of mine get crackin first and then sort out my own substitution.

Sparks

Thing to remember here is that the garda at the station is not the authority on the law. Mainly because Garda HQ isn't spending money training the guy behind the desk about the changes in the law. My local lad was very helpful, very straightforward and didn't BS at all about it -- but he'd still never even seen one of the new licences until he granted my one. If they're given that little training, it's inevitable that there's going to be problems, and it sounds like you're running into that.

Rovi

You have a few of ways of doing this, while ensuring that neither yourself nor the other party are in possession of an unlicensed firearm at some point in proceedings.

1.
You hold onto your original gun until the other person has licenced it. You then give it to them, get a copy of their licence for it (and perhaps a letter from them too), and then go to your Garda Station and do a substitution (Form FCA2) on your existing licence. You then take possession of the new gun.
As this is a substitution on an existing licence, there is no fee involved.

2.
You hold onto your original gun until the other person has licenced it.
In the meantime, you make a new application (Form FCA1) for the new gun, which takes its normal route and you take possession of the new gun when the process is complete.
When the other person has successfully licenced your original gun, you then give it to them, get a copy of their licence for it (and perhaps a letter from them too), and then go to your Garda Station and do a cancellation (Form FCA2) on the licence.
This will involve you holding 2 separate licences, with the €80 payable for both at some point.
A variation on this (avoiding the second licence fee) would be the old 'Letter of Authorisation', allowing you to take possession pending the completion of all the other paperwork, but I haven't heard of any of these since the new licencing regime came in and I don't know if they're even possible anymore.

3.
You put your original gun into the secure custody of a Registered Firearms Dealer. They issue you a note stating that they have taken possession of it, and you include this with the FCA2 substitution application detailed in point 1 above.
The RFD also issues a note to the purchaser of the gun which they then include with their FCA1 application, the same as if they were actually purchasing the gun from the RFD.
The RFD is perfectly entitled, in my opinion, to charge a fee for this service. Who pays this is between yourself and the person buying your old gun.


Anyone else know of any other way to do this whilst remaining legal throughout?