Accepting money from finance company

Assalamualaikum my dear respected brothers,

I have recently got into the trade of buying and selling cars. A non Muslim customer is interested in buying a car from me and he has advised that he has arranged finance for the vehicle and has been approved. He went on to say that the finance company will transfer the funds for the vehicle directly to my account should he like the car. My question to you is, is this permissible? I have done some research on the topic and I am under the impression that I cannot accept this type of deal as I would be accepting Riba money. The one thing that I couldn’t get in my head was if this same situation was for the sale of a house and a first time buyer was using a conventional mortgage to buy my house from me through the bank how is this permissible but the sale of the vehicle is not possible they are both Riba transactions? Have I missed something here? The vehicle is expensive and I don’t think many people will have the money to pay up front for it. The only other option I could think of offering to the man, is drafting up a sell contract where he pays a large deposit off for the vehicle and pays the rest off in monthly re payments directly to me. Please shed some light on this issue, jazakallahukhairan

Assalaamu alaykum,

If you are able to draft a contract and sell to this person over instalments, that would be a guaranteed method of ensuring that the entire structure is Shariah compliant.

With regard to your question, the money you would be receiving is technically a loan to your customer. The financier would be paying off their debt immediately and the customer would accrue a loan and potentially interest repayments to the financier. So you are not technically receiving interest.

Allah knows best