Ideally you and the seller need to visit an attorney, preferably your attorney not the seller's.

I bought first, I paid the seller and he wrote out a receipt saying he was the legal owner etc.

But when I went to the NTO Office they checked the documents and said I must see an attorney for an affidavit.
I went to our attorney and was advised by him that the seller should also come to his office and swear the affidavit. This was done, then back to the NTO.

Again we had problems. Apparently there was a lost document which the seller had a few years earlier. Required another document to replace this, stating that the document had been lost.

Now the NTO did some checks because of this, and it turned out that records showed an earlier owner was still the legal owner, and that's why he had declared the document lost. He'd had no problem with NTO for renewals. Only now that he had sold the motor it became a problem.

NTO advised us, giving us the name of the original owner and stating that we should ask him to do a Bill of Sale and affidavit as if he had sold to us, and not the real seller.

Now we spent days trying to find this guy. Anyway, we ended up going to our seller who then contacted the previous owner for us. We were lucky he was found and agreed to doing a Bill of Sale to me with an affidavit.

It was a nightmare! I don't think I would buy privately again, because of this.

I was lucky to have my brother-in-law with me to converse with the NTO.

I think to be legally safe, try to get the seller to the attorney before paying. Though it's still no guarantee, he may point out anything that is wrong with the documents. Remember the first time round we went to an attorny for a sworn affidavit by me and the seller did not prove his ownership.