Get An Abandoned Vehicle Title

Abandoned Vehicles
We’re going to talk about the most commonly requested subject that comes up from callers to our private vehicle title helpline. This is the most frequently asked for information, and it’s what most people who contact us ask about: abandoned vehicles. Mostly it’s because the person who’s calling needs to get a vehicle title a legal title document for a vehicle and the idea they came up with is to say, “I’m going to declare it as an abandoned vehicle and claim it.”

The Consequences of Declaring a Vehicle Abandoned
We’re going to talk about that and look at the laws and how that works because one of the things you have to remember is that an abandoned vehicle may not be the actual definition of the vehicle you’re trying to get a title for. And as soon as you declare it as an abandoned vehicle, it is now permanently locked into that definition, and you may not be able to get a title it may permanently ban you from getting a title.

Better Methods Than Declaring a Vehicle Abandoned
There are often better methods of getting a title than trying to claim it to be abandoned because if you think about it, where did you hear about abandoned vehicles? Probably just something you came up with or maybe you read it on some discussion group. It’s not normally the best way to get a title. In fact, most of the time, if you declare and say a vehicle’s abandoned, you will lose the vehicle forever to the government.

Government-Issued Titles
Remember, a title is a legal government document issued only by a government agency. You can’t buy one from a company, you can’t download one from the internet. The government decides who to give titles to based on their rules. The government agency in most states is called the Department of Motor Vehicles. Some states call it the Department of Transportation.

Abandoned Vehicle Laws Across States
You’ll notice that when we look at a few states, the rules are going to be almost exactly the same from all these different states. Why is that? Well, the rules for abandoned vehicles come from federal guidelines federal government guidelines. So all the states’ rules are about the same. You’ll see as we look at three or four states here how it works, even if your state is not one of the ones we use as an example.

Pennsylvania’s Vehicle Disposal Rules
First, we’re going to look at a fact sheet on the disposal of abandoned vehicles from private property, and that’s probably what you’re thinking about because you can’t really claim abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, right? If it’s on the highway or if it’s on a street, you can’t really claim that. But if it’s on your property, you might say, “Hey, if it’s on my property, I’ll charge storage fees and I’ll claim the vehicle.”

Definitions of Abandoned Vehicles in Pennsylvania
The purpose of this fact sheet is information on disposing of vehicles which have been left on private property. Notice the word “disposing.” It doesn’t say “ownership.” This is from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The definition of terminology: abandoned vehicles involve an intention to abandon together with an act of surrendering the vehicle.

Legal Definition of Abandoned Vehicle in Pennsylvania
Abandoned property is that which an owner has relinquished all rights, title, and claim, and possession with no intention of claiming it or resuming ownership. So if you declare it to be abandoned, you’re saying that the owner and you see, it says “an owner,” not “the owner”, “has relinquished all rights, title, claim, and possession.” If you’re saying you’re the owner, then you’re relinquishing rights just from day one. You might be game over on doing it.

When a Vehicle is Presumed Abandoned in Pennsylvania
A vehicle shall be presumed to be abandoned under any of the following circumstances, but the presumption is rebuttable, meaning that it’s not 100%:

• The vehicle is physically inoperable and left unattended on a highway or public property for 48 hours
• The vehicle has remained illegally on a highway for a period of 48 hours
• The vehicle has remained on private property without the consent of the owner for more than 24 hours

Private Property and Abandoned Vehicles
You might say, “Yeah, it’s been here for more than 24 hours,” but did you ever give consent to the person to put it there? Did you ever say, “Hey, you can leave your car here for a couple of days”? Did you buy the car and give somebody money and they gave you a bill of sale? Well, that was consent because you put it there. So this doesn’t apply for most scenarios without the consent of the owner. Now, if somebody just voluntarily drives a car onto your driveway, leaves it, and takes off and you don’t know who it is and you never told them to do it, that might apply.

Methods of Disposing of Abandoned Vehicles
So what do you do? Here are the methods of disposing of vehicles:

• You may request a police department to declare a vehicle abandoned and require a salvage yard to take possession
• The property owner may personally remove the vehicle to a place of storage pursuant to section 3352—basically, you bring it to a towing company or salvage yard for them to get rid of it

What Happens After Vehicle Removal
The vehicle may be sold at a sheriff’s sale. The property owner may file suit in common pleas court requesting that an order be entered awarding ownership. That sounds like a court order title we’ll talk about that later.

Court Order for Vehicle Ownership
You can’t declare it as abandoned and say, “I want to keep it.” You have to petition and request that an order be entered to award you the ownership, and that request will extinguish the title and interest of any other person. The property owner may not repossess an automobile for the cost of storing the vehicle unless you are a bona fide warehouseman provided by the Universal Commercial Code.

Challenges with Vehicle Ownership Claims
What if you say, “Well, I did work on it and I want to use that to claim the ownership”? Well, a bill incurred for repairs to a vehicle can be collected only by filing a complaint and obtaining a judgment against the owner. What does that sound like? Sounds like a court order title, right?

Texas Rules on Abandoned Vehicles
Texas law says that there are certain requirements you have to meet if you are going to charge, store, or remove a vehicle. What if you’re a storage facility, like a self-storage yard? Well, the first thing you need to do is: the garage keeper shall report the abandonment of the motor vehicle to a law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction where the vehicle is located and pay a $10 fee for notification. The garage keeper shall retain custody of the abandoned motor vehicle until the agency takes the vehicle into custody. So what does that say? The cops are going to take the car if you say it’s abandoned.

California’s Lien Sale Procedures
If you declare it to be abandoned, you have to report it to the police and they come take it. What if you don’t report it as abandoned? A garage keeper who fails to report an abandoned vehicle to a law enforcement agency within 7 days after the date it’s abandoned may not claim reimbursement for storage of the vehicle.

Legal Process for Vehicle Ownership in California
Last but not least, we’re going to look at California. So here’s a place—for California, if you’re thinking about California, you can call us and talk to us about these situations, but we just want to let you know that an abandoned vehicle in California is also the same, meaning the law says that you can’t just declare it as abandoned.

Conclusion
The only way to keep abandoned cars forever is through proper paperwork, court orders, salvage, and legal procedures. Simply declaring a vehicle “abandoned” doesn’t automatically grant you ownership and often results in losing the vehicle to government authorities. Before pursuing any abandoned vehicle claim, consult with legal professionals and explore alternative title acquisition methods that may be more appropriate for your specific situation.

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Is Carvana Really In A Turnaround?

Carvana’s Initial Issues
You may remember back a few years ago when we had done some reporting on this channel. You can see in this video clip that we were concerned that Carvana, the major auto retailer, was having problems. There were some criminal accusations, and there were major title problems. We were hearing from clients every single day about how they were having title issues and not getting titles for vehicles. There were some questions about their accounting back then and whether or not they were even going to stay in business. Did they have enough money? And we reported on this. We had probably eight or nine videos over the course of six or eight months that talked about whether or not Carvana was even a legitimate company, allegedly.

The Turnaround and Initial Resolution
Well, all of a sudden these problems seemed to go away. They bought an auction company called ADESA. They moved some money around. They changed their financial statements, and all of a sudden it looked like they were in great shape. Their stock went up. Their company seemed like it was rebounding, and so it kind of faded away.

New Allegations Surface
But it seems like we were a little ahead of our time. This article came out today in Automotive News where Hindenburg Research, which is a company that looks for publicly traded organizations or corporations hiding problems on their books, questioned Carvana’s accounting practices and called the turnaround a mirage. So that turnaround that happened two and a half, three years ago made it seem like the company all of a sudden was in great shape. It was kind of curious. We even questioned in one of our videos, like, how did this happen all of a sudden? They were at one point on the ropes, back against the wall, and then a couple of months later they were doing great. It’s not like they were selling many more cars; their business wasn’t that much different. It’s just that their finances all of a sudden got better. We questioned how that happened. And since, you know, it wasn’t that big of a deal to us, we kind of let sleeping dogs lie.

Forensic Audit Results
Well, this article comes out to say they made accusations that they did a forensic financial audit and found $800 million in loan sales to a suspected undisclosed related party, and that there was accounting manipulation and lack of underwriting resulting in temporary reported income growth. So what they’re saying, basically, is the income growth, the business development, the rise in sales was all smoke and mirrors. That’s what they’re saying, allegedly. Their research, including extensive document review and 49 interviews with employees and related parties, shows that Carvana’s turnaround is a mirage. It remains to be seen whether or not this is accurate, but it is a troubling report coming out from a major analyst.

Closing Thoughts
Now granted, they’re short sellers, so they bet on companies going down, but who knows whether or not this video we did a couple of years ago, “We Told You So, Carvana in Trouble,” was a precursor to this major problem with Carvana. Stay tuned and let us know if you’re having problems with any Carvana titles or any dealership titles for that matter.

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What To Expect For Car Titles In 2025

Vehicle Titling in 2025
So what can you expect in the industry of vehicle titling for the year 2025? Obviously, with the new year, there are a lot of new rules and not a lot of new laws, and also some industry transformations that we’ll be seeing in the coming year and years following. There are four major changes that will happen to the vehicle title process in the coming year. We’ll talk about all four of them, and it’s going to affect you as a vehicle owner, as maybe an automotive professional, as a lender, or as an auction. A lot of our clients are auctions.

Electronic Titles
The first one is going to be electronic titles. Through our coalition called eART with many other title providers and some other third-party vendors like DocuSign, CarMax, and Manheim Auto Auctions, we are now pursuing a transformation with the different DMVs in different states to have them convert to electronic titling in all 50 states. Now, it’s a slow process, and it’s going to take a while to get there, but many states are already starting to implement technology.

Digital Signatures and Paperless Process
They’re starting to implement rules that allow for things like electronic digital signatures. Look, everything else you do in life buy a house, sign a mortgage you can do electronically, right? Use DocuSign e-signatures. DMVs don’t normally allow this right now; only one state really allows it, so we’re working on doing that. We’re also working on eliminating paper title documents. We’re looking at electronic documents. We’re working hard to get that done. So in 2025, we expect that many states are going to start adopting more and more of these rules and allowing people to have electronic titles and electronic records, which will make the process easier. You won’t get as much of a runaround, and you won’t have to wait as long for titles to come in the mail. You can get them almost instantaneously.

Montana LLC Loophole
The second big change for vehicle titles is going to be Montana LLCs. Remember, back years ago, there used to be the Vermont loophole. People did this Vermont loophole over and over to get titles from different states using the Vermont loophole, and that loophole, for many years and we talked about it back starting five, six years ago was really numbered in days, right? Because it’s not really the preferred way of getting a title, and the other states really didn’t like it because you weren’t going through the right process. Eventually, they put enough pressure on the federal government and Vermont to stop doing it, and the state of Vermont didn’t want to stop because they were getting a lot of money on sales tax.

The Montana LLC Loophole Explained
Well, now the loophole that some people are using is the Montana LLC loophole. What is that? Well, Montana does not charge sales tax when you buy a vehicle, so some people are using this process to buy a vehicle without having to pay sales tax by putting the car in a corporation name in Montana. Now, why a corporation name? Well, most states don’t allow you almost all states don’t allow you to get a title from that state unless you are a resident of the state. So you can’t just shop around and say, “Well, this state is easier or better for me to get a title. Let me just get a title from there.” It doesn’t work that way. You have to be a resident. But the way to work around it is you form a corporation in Montana, an LLC, you put the title in the name of the corporation, and you don’t pay tax. Well, technically, that’s not good because even though you registered it and titled it in Montana, you’re driving it in your state. So the tax isn’t just where you get the title; it’s where you use it, where you’re an owner.

Legal Issues with Montana LLCs
Whether or not that evades your taxes or not, that’s between you and your taxing authority and your revenue department. That’s more of a legal question than a title question. But you’ve got to watch out because many states are recognizing that this Montana LLC is a way people are using to evade taxes or to avoid things like inspections or paperwork, right? And the states, through our conversations with different states, they know that this is happening. They’re not stupid; they realize this is going on. There are all kinds of fly-by-night companies advertising, “Yeah, we’ll do this Montana thing for you,” and you’re paying $500 to $600 in fees to get a license plate from Montana.

Crackdown on Montana LLCs
A lot of people are doing it on higher-end vehicles like luxury vehicles or motorhomes when those could cost $100,000 to $200,000, and you could save $10,000 to $15,000 in sales tax. Now, there may be legitimate reasons to do it rather than just avoiding the sales tax, or you might say, “Well, I’m going to do that because I’d rather have a title there and still pay the tax in my state.” That’s fine, but that’s something that’s going to end pretty soon. You’re not going to see that being able to be done too much longer, and some states are starting to crack down. They’re sending out bulletins to law enforcement in the state: “Look, if you see a Montana license plate in our state, run the plate. If it’s an LLC, pull that car over to see if the driver is on the LLC,” because now that begs the question: Are they using the car in their state? Plus, check the insurance.

Insurance and Registration Issues with Montana LLCs
Because if you have a Montana LLC, the question is: Where is your car insurance policy from? If you have a Montana policy, but you’re driving it, let’s say, half the year or all the time in Virginia, then you’re kind of misrepresenting to your insurance company where you’re using the car. On the other hand, if you get an insurance policy from Virginia and you have a Montana LLC, then it doesn’t match the registration. So that could be a problem. So if you’re going to look at that, we recommend getting legal advice from an attorney to make sure what you’re doing is not going to get you in trouble. Look, it may not you may talk to an attorney and they say, “That’s fine” but just make sure that you verify for yourself that what you’re going to be doing matches your personal needs and matches the laws in your state and matches what you’re trying to accomplish. It doesn’t get you into trouble accidentally.

Salvage Vehicles and Copart/IAA Auctions
Number three is salvage vehicles: Copart vehicles, IAA auction vehicles. We’ve started this conversation many years ago, three or four years ago. Most of the vehicles now that are coming out of Copart and IAA are going to start to be more commonly designated as “parts only” vehicles, not salvage. Some states call it “certificate of destruction,” some states call it “non-repairable,” Texas calls it that. Some states call it “junk.” The scary thing is some states don’t call it anything. They just don’t give you a title, and you may not know you’re getting one of these.

Insurance and the Parts-Only Designation
What does that mean? Well, if the vehicle has been designated “junk” or “parts only,” its VIN number is void. You can’t get a title, can’t get a registration; it’s a permanent cancellation of that vehicle as being eligible for any kind of on-road use. Can only use it for parts. A lot of people are buying these cars out of Copart, IAA, not knowing what they’re getting into, and they’re finding out later, “I can’t get a title.” And we’ve talked about this before, so this isn’t news. The news is more insurance companies are starting to use this instead of salvage titles. Why are they doing that?

Why Insurance Companies Favor Parts-Only Titles
Well, what they’re finding is they’re not getting that much less money for the car at the auction. They’re getting the same amount. Why is that? Well, most of the people who are buying cars at Copart or IAA are not buying them for the purpose of putting them back on the road, fixing them up, and selling them. Most of the people buying cars there are buying them to take them apart anyway. Even a salvage title. In fact, the only people really making big money on cars at Copart or IAA auction are the ones who are dismantlers.

The Economics of Buying Salvage Cars
You buy a salvage title car, it’s crashed in the front, and they take it apart. You can have a $5,000 engine, a $3,000 transmission, $2,000 airbags maybe five or six of those you have wheels, you have doors, you have computers. Gosh, there are four or five computers in a car, each one could be worth $1,000. By the time you add all that up, it could be more than what the car would be worth if you bought one from a dealership. So you have the expense of dismantling it. More importantly, you have to have the expertise of knowing where to put all these parts, ship them to warehouses, put them in the right place, and advertise them.

Insurance Companies and Salvage Cars
But these parts companies already have that. They’re already doing that. So if you took the same car, let’s say a 2022 Toyota Camry, it’s crashed in the front, you buy it for half its book value or even a third of its book value. You might think, “Well, I’m stealing the car.” Well, by the time you buy all the parts, put the car back together, and go to sell it, you’re going to find a couple of things. First of all, you’re not going to get that much for the car, because people who are in the market for used cars want a car that’s in good condition. You don’t get that much out of it. But by dismantling it, you’re now part of the supply chain that gets to sell these parts. And that’s why insurance companies have figured that out. They’re selling parts, they’re liquidating these vehicles, they are selling them off, and they’re moving them through auctions without much of an issue.

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How To Avoid Car Buying Scams

Fake Auto Sellers: A Growing Concern
We’re seeing this more and more with these fake auto sellers. They might have a vehicle for sale online and they might ask you to ship money and they’ll send you the car. They might even have the physical car available for you to look at, but it’s not a licensed dealer. One of the things you want to do anytime you’re buying a vehicle from a person or company is make sure you buy it either from a private party that’s the owner of the vehicle or a licensed dealer, and you have to verify both of those.

Verifying the Vehicle’s Title
If you’re buying a vehicle from a private party, what you want to do is look at the title, look at the name on the title, and make sure the person you’re dealing with is the same person whose name is on the title, not a third party that’s flipping the vehicle or saying, “I’m selling my cousin’s vehicle,” or “I got it from an auction.” If the person on the title is not who you’re dealing with, don’t buy the car. Because here’s the thing: vehicle titles cannot be reassigned. Once a vehicle title is signed over to another person, the title can’t be reassigned to somebody else. That person has to get a new title first before it goes to somebody else. So, let’s say somebody’s flipping cars. They buy a car from John Smith; their name is Sally Jones. Sally Jones can’t resell it to you until she gets a new title. So, if a car has been flipped and you’re not dealing with the person whose name is printed on the front of the title (not written on the back, printed on the front), you could have a title problem.

Unlicensed Car Dealers and Scams
Another thing is these unlicensed, fly-by-night car dealers. What these dealers are doing is pretending that they’re a legitimate dealership but they’re not licensed. How do you verify that? Get the name of the business and their address and check with the licensing bureau of your state to see if they have a valid auto dealer’s license. If you’re buying it from a company that does not have a valid auto dealer’s license, they’re not allowed to buy and sell cars for a living. Now, if you’re buying it from a company that owned it, like Joe’s Plumbing, that has a bunch of trucks, that’s a different story. They’re selling a vehicle with a title with their name on it, like we talked about with the private sale. But if you’re buying it from a company that’s flipping cars, buying cars at auctions, and they’re not a licensed dealer, that’s not allowable under the law. In this case, there’s a couple in Oregon that lost $45,000 because they bought a vehicle from a fake dealership—from a stolen car.

Protecting Yourself from Fraudulent Sellers
If you buy a car from a licensed dealer and they make a mistake and sell you a vehicle that has a title problem, they’re supposed to make it right, and there are funds and bonds that can make up for that. So, make sure when you’re buying a vehicle, that’s your hard-earned money you’re putting at risk. Either buy it from the person whose name is printed on the title or buy it from a company you can verify has a dealership license, and they can show you the title. Don’t give them money if they can’t at least show you the title. They might not be able to give it to you because they might have to process it into your name, but make them show it to you to make sure they actually have the title and are not selling a vehicle that they haven’t paid for yet.

Additional Resources
If you like this blog, be sure to check out a few others on our website, cartitles.com, to see if there’s other information that might be helpful to you about this same subject or maybe even other related subjects that could assist you with your resolution of your issue.

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How Do Duplicate Car Titles Work?

How Duplicate Titles Work for a Motor Vehicle
So how do duplicate titles actually work for a motor vehicle? A duplicate title request is when a person who is the legal titled owner of the vehicle requests a replacement certificate for the one that they had and lost, or never had to begin with. Now keep in mind that a duplicate title is a very specific phrase. What it means is exactly what the two words mean: duplicate title. It is a duplication of the last title issued. So remember, a vehicle title is a legal document that explains and identifies an actual vehicle’s year, make, model, and VIN number, but also assigns the ownership of that vehicle to a particular person. Right, so Joe Smith owns this 2020 Toyota Camry. Well, if Joe Smith is the owner, he has a title; it’s a certificate. If at some point Joe Smith loses that title, Joe Smith and only Joe Smith can request a duplicate title certificate. Nobody else can because the DMV or the titling authority in your state is not going to give that title certificate to anybody except for Joe Smith. It protects him in his ownership because if anybody could get the replacement title, then anybody could get any title for any car they wanted, even if they had a bill of sale or receipt or anything. So the only person who can request a duplicate title is the person whose name is in the title records.

What to Do If Your Name Isn’t on the Title
So how does that work? Well, if your name is not in the official records, then you don’t want to order a duplicate title. You want to do a title replacement, title recovery, or a title transfer. That’s a whole different thing. We’ve talked about that in other videos, and you can find out more on our channel or on our website. But if your name was on the last title and you want to order a duplicate, you can do that. Now remember, if there’s a lien holder listed on the title, they have to be cleared off first. Even if you paid off the loan, that lien might still be lingering in the title records. You might have to get that cleared up, and we can talk about how to do that. You can find it on our website. If there are other owners on the title, a co-owner or co-signer, you also have to get their signature to make sure they’re okay with you getting the title.

The Fastest Way to Get a Duplicate Title
Now, what’s the best way to get a duplicate title? Well, the fastest way to do it is to go in person to the Department of Motor Vehicles office. Drive there, take an appointment, wait in line, show your ID to show who you are. They’ll match your ID, look up in the system, “Yep, that’s your name on the title.” Here’s another title. They normally can give it to you the same day. Sometimes smaller branches might not have blank titles in stock, and they might have to mail it to you in a couple of days. That’s the fastest way to do it and the cheapest, for that matter. But now, you have to go to the DMV, get the right forms, and do everything. There are ways to do it that are easier where you don’t have to go anywhere, but that’s going to cost a little more money.

Remote Options for Ordering a Duplicate Title
If you go on our website, cartitles.com, it’ll show you the process for doing it remotely. You can order it online. It’s going to take longer and might cost more money, but it’s going to be less work. So you have to balance: do you want it faster and cheaper or slower and easier? Right? It’s easier to just click a button online and get it, but if you need it fast or you’re on a budget, go to the DMV in person. Bring your photo ID, bring the VIN number, and you can get it directly that way. If you don’t mind waiting a little bit and would rather not go in line at the DMV, then you have other options.

Conclusion and Additional Information
That’s how a duplicate title works and how the duplicate car title process is handled. If you do have more questions, you can click the link below. It’ll give you instructions and also offer you the option if you want to talk live to a licensed, certified title agent. You can do that as well on our website, cartitles.com.

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