dan lee you pretty much got it summed up...

best would be to get a bank cheque written up, that way when the cash goes to the seller the keys go to you.

You can lower the duty by declaring a lower purchase price than you did purchase it for. However i think it may be classified as fraud, that said MANY people do it anyway. However with all this stuff there is always a paper trail. Ie, if you declare you paud 10k for your ITR, i am sure you insurance company could find out how much you declared it for, and choose to pay you this figure instead of the agreed value that you actually did pay for it...be wise about it. Doon't go declaring ITR's for 5k.