Are Online VIN Checks Legitimate?

Title Status and Lien Status Inquiry
When buying a vehicle or working on getting a title for a vehicle one of the questions that comes up is how do you check for the current title status and lien status. While it may not be necessary to do this when you already bought the vehicle and you’re trying to get a title you definitely want to try to check the title status before you buy a vehicle. If you’re buying a vehicle from somebody and they’re not handing you over a legal title certificate, you do want to perform searches to make sure that the vehicle is eligible for a title.

Caution with Online VIN Checkers
Now one of the things that a lot of people will do is go online to Carfax, VINCheck, or one of these online VIN checkers. Be very leery of those sites. If you read the disclaimers, it tells you, “This is not the official title record.” This is just some arbitrary third party that may have some records but not all of them.

For example, those websites cannot check for liens, period, end of story. Lien information is very tightly controlled, and sites like Carfax might tell you “no liens found,” but that’s because they can’t even search for them. It’ll say in the disclaimer that liens are not part of it.

Also, title records may not be totally available on the online searches. So how do you do it? Well, the only official source for title records is the government. Every state has a department that issues titles and keeps records. In most states, it’s called Department of Motor Vehicles; some states call it Motor Vehicle Department; some states call it Department of Transportation; in some states, it’s done by another agency like the Secretary of State.

That government organization/agency is the only—and I mean only—official record of the title. If you get the official record from that agency, you will be 99% sure it’s accurate. There are a couple of exceptions, but that’s where you want to get it: right from the horse’s mouth. Don’t do these online VIN checks because they’re very misleading.

Checking Title for Lien in New York
Here’s an example of where you can check it in the state of New York. Not every state has anything online; in most states, you will have to go in person to a government office or the DMV, show your photo ID so that they can make sure they’re giving out the information to somebody appropriately. There is a federal law that prohibits giving out certain title information to random people—it’s privacy rules.

In New York, you can look up some information now. It’s not going to tell you who the owner is, but it will tell you things like:

• Is there a title issued?
• Is there a title that was rejected?
• Is there a lien on it?

The way you do it is you go to this website—it’s a title status website for the DMV. You check off if it’s a vehicle, put in the VIN number, what year it is, and then a make (like Mercedes-Benz or Chevrolet, that kind of thing). Hit continue, and it’ll give you some basic information. Again, it won’t tell you everything, but at least it’ll start you on the right track.

Research for Title Acquisition
Now keep in mind, if you’re trying to get a title for a vehicle, in most cases you don’t need to look this up. You may have to send in a DPPA request (Driver’s Privacy Protection Act request)—our website will give you more information on how that works. But if you’re doing a bonded title or a court order title, most of the time you don’t need to look this up; the government is going to look this up for you when they issue the title.

However, if you’re looking to buy a vehicle and the seller is not quite complete with their documents—they don’t have a title, they don’t have the ownership documents—you might want to do some of this research for due diligence prior to giving them any money. Because once they have your money, they’re not going to do any work for you.

And remember: no matter what stack of paperwork that seller gives you—bill of sale, notarized registration, proof of all these things—you could have a stack of papers three feet thick, but unless it has a title, all that stuff is worthless. Don’t let a big pile of paperwork fool you into thinking you have what you need to get a title. The only paperwork you need is one thing, and that is a title—the original legal title certificate.

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