Common Inquiries in Sales DepartmentPeople ask us in the sales department here all the time if you ever get in trouble for doing shady stuff with car titles. If you’re trying to avoid taxes, if you’re trying to avoid inspection, or other types of requirements. Certainly, it’s kind of like a game of Russian Roulette; you don’t know if you’re going to get in trouble, but it does happen.
Example of Title Jumping and Tax Evasion CaseHere’s a perfect example. A title jumping tax evasion case has reached its end. Sentencing of a 37-year-old found guilty of violation of the Nebraska certificate of title act and willful evasion of sales tax, both felonies. This defendant argued that nobody was harmed, right? Nobody was a victim, but he still was sentenced to a felony. The prosecutor says he was avoiding paying required taxes and failing to fill out portions of the title. Basically, he did title jumping. He had a title, he didn’t put it into his name; he flipped it to somebody else. Apparently, he was not sentenced to prison but he does have to provide a DNA sample and has a felony conviction. It made its way to court after an investigation showed he attempted to sell a motorcycle after he purchased it and failed to pay sales tax. How much could it have been, right?
Common Practice to Avoid Sales TaxHe said it’s a common practice for those attempting to avoid paying the tax on a vehicle. The approximate amount of sales tax owed on the purchase would have been about $83. So, if we’re trying to save $83, he’s now a convicted felon. He had to go through this court case that probably cost him thousands in legal fees.
Avoiding Tax Evasion ConsequencesSo anytime you’re thinking, “Well, let me try to do something to avoid taxes. Maybe I want to title it out of state. Maybe I want to switch the VIN number. Maybe I want to do a flip title.” Use whatever actual title process is available to you: bonded title, court order title, prior owner contact, any one of the legitimate methods offered to you. Sure, it may be a little more paperwork, it may be a little harder, you might have to pay some taxes, but if you do that, you’re never going to have to worry about something coming out of the woodwork later and jamming you up on a criminal prosecution. Once you have that, you know you get another one for something else; now you’re going to be looking at jail time.
Importance of Following Legal ProceduresBe aware that you might not think a vehicle title is a big deal, but there are people out there looking at it. There’s a task force. We talk to them all the time. People call us up asking about what we know about the market. Are there ways that can be used? We’re a member of EART, so you want to make sure you’re doing it right. You don’t want to be doing anything shady—no fake mechanic’s liens, no flipping cars to LLCs. You don’t want to mess with any of that junk because all it’s going to do is make you not be able to sleep at night over saving like $83 or avoiding an inspection.
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Ensuring a Title for Your Vehicle: Key StepsOkay, here are the top four things you can do to guarantee to make sure you’re going to get a title for your vehicle. If you have a title problem and you want to be guaranteed of getting a title, here’s what you need to do to make sure that happens.
Check Vehicle EligibilityFirst of all, make sure you have a vehicle eligible for a title. If you have a vehicle that has a stolen active report, you’re not getting a title. Stolen cars don’t get titles. If you have a vehicle that is a junk or parts only or certificate of destruction, something where that VIN number has been compromised and canceled, you’re not getting a title. That’s a permanent cancellation, so you want to make sure you have a legitimate vehicle. Also, you want to make sure that if it’s a salvage or if it has liens on it, that you know how to properly make sure you extinguish those. We’ll talk about those in one of the other steps, but first, make sure you have a legitimate vehicle.
Use the Proper ProcessNumber two is to make sure that you’re using the proper process for that scenario. For example, if you have a lien on a vehicle, you can’t do a bonded title; you might have to do a court order. If you’re not the legal, if you’re not the name on the existing title record, you can’t do a duplicate title, a replacement title; that can only be done by the person whose name is in the title records. So pick the right method. There’s five or six different ways you can get a title; you have to use the one that matches your scenario. Do you have a bill of sale or not? That might affect it. So number two is making sure you use the right process. Many times, we get calls from people that said somebody tried to get me a title and it didn’t work. I tried to get a title, and I got rejected. Well, why did you get rejected? Well, because of this. Turns out they used the wrong method. All they have to do was do something different, right? Do the right method. You have to do some research on making sure you’re doing the right thing.
Written Communication OnlyNumber three is to make sure you’re not trying to do anything over the phone with the DMV. You’re not trying to do it by phone or by email. You want to do things in writing. Anytime you try to get a lien release by phone from a bank or you call up the DMV to get answers, you’re not going to get good, solid, accurate information. We talk to DMV 50, 60 times a day. Working on files for our clients half the time, what they tell you is incorrect. Not because they’re lying to you or trying to mislead you. Many times they misunderstood what you said. They don’t know the whole story, or the person answering the phone might just be a clerk or a receptionist that doesn’t really know about complicated title methods. You want to go in person if you’re doing it yourself and get a printout. Don’t even let them tell you verbally over the counter what it is that you’re allowed to do. Make them give you a printout so that way you have it documented. So if you go back later and say, “Here I am,” they can’t say, “No, you can’t do that,” because they already told you in writing that you could.
Follow Through All StepsLast but not least, number four is to make sure you follow through all the steps. If you have to get an inspection, if you have to get a surety bond, if you have to send out notices, don’t skip any of those. Many times a person is right there, so close to getting a title, but they just get lazy and don’t want to send out a letter or they don’t want to sign a document or get something notarized. Make sure you do all the steps. Half the people that call us up that tell us, “I didn’t get a title for my car,” the reason is because they didn’t do something very simple they could have done. Maybe they didn’t feel like it or they don’t like doing that thing, but if you don’t do it, you’re never going to get a title. You can’t make that go away. So make sure you follow all the steps in that process. Whether you’re doing it yourself or we do it, don’t throw away your title. Don’t waive your valid title rights because you didn’t do one small thing. And maybe jumping through a few hoops, it may be annoying, but that’s the difference between having no title and having a valid legal document that could be worth thousands. So that one small step could be worth a lot of money.
Conclusion and Further HelpSo make sure you have a legitimate vehicle—not stolen, not parts only. Make sure that you’re using the right process. You’re not picking the wrong process, and you could do a consultation with us to find out the right process. Then, make sure that you’re doing everything formally—not just phone calls, not just asking somebody online, not just asking your buddy at the swap meet. Getting true answers from the horse’s mouth. And then follow through. Do all the steps. Get it done. Get a title so you can sell your car.
So how’s this for a big piece of news in the electric vehicle Market: the Tesla Model Y was the top-selling vehicle in the world for 2023. Beat Corolla, beat F-150, beat everybody based on registrations.
China’s Manufacturing MilestoneNow the other piece of news is China, as a manufacturer, was top for the first time ever as a country. So a lot is going on in the transition of the automobile market, both in what types of vehicles are being sold and where they’re being produced. Electric vehicles, gas vehicles, hybrid vehicles.
Live Expert ConsultationsYou’re going to see more and more of these evolutions where more and more vehicles will be electric, and more of them will be coming from China. It’ll reduce the price. We expect that used Teslas will be at $10,000 in the used car market within the next year. So it’s going to make for a much different used car market down the road.
Future of the Used Car MarketEven if you didn’t want an electric vehicle, if you wanted a used car and a gas car is going to be $25,000 or $30,000 and a used Tesla is going to be $10,000, you might say, “Well, I’ll just buy one of these every couple of years. It’ll be cheaper than buying a used gasoline vehicle.”
Share Your ThoughtsI know you have thoughts about this. Put them in the comments. Let us know what you think.
So what has been going on with EStart and digital vehicle titles? As you know, we’ve been a member of the EStart Coalition along with many other professionals like DocuSign, TrueCar, Adessa Auto Auctions, Carvana, and many other automotive and digital platform participants. And so far this year, in 2024, we’ve had a lot of success in getting certain states to transition to electronic titles.
Legislative RecapHere’s a breakdown of what EStart has done so far and we’ll look at some of the specific documents as well. Legislative recap: modernization. Still a few states with legislatures in session. Most of the states have already concluded for the year. Here is a recap of the legislation and the outcome that impacted from the EART Coalition.
Colorado and ConnecticutColorado adds lease vehicles to electronic titles. Before, they had electronic titles but only for purchase vehicles. Connecticut, impacting existing electronic document processing, authorizes making electronic notifications for title records. So that’s good news.
Mississippi and South DakotaMississippi requires electronic notification of lien satisfaction. This is great because lien releases are notoriously a problem and having that done electronically is good. South Dakota allows remote notaries. That’s a really good advancement, so that way you don’t have to go in person to a notary.
Tennessee and UtahTennessee requires, the keyword is requires, electronic lien and title system by June of 2026. So this is a full transition to electronic titles. Utah, again, remote online notaries, establish electronic title system by the end of next year. This is crucial.
VirginiaVirginia secure power attorney. This is something that’s not a big deal, but it’s helpful.
Human Consultation ReminderYou will be back to reading in just a few seconds. In the meantime, remember that ActualHuman.com offers you live one-on-one private video consultation with an expert in this exact subject. We want to listen to your story, hear your questions, give you expert advisement of your options, and tell you what we know about your particular situation. Now, back to your reading.
Massachusetts and New JerseyStill in process: Massachusetts has a very good e-signature bill that’s in process. It’ll probably get passed. New Jersey, to establish electronic lien and title, and that’s pretty much a done deal that just has to get signed off on.
North CarolinaNorth Carolina establishes a print-on-demand temporary tag system. So that’s a big deal; you can print your own tags, license plates, temporary tags.
National PoliciesFor EStart, a few other policies that are in the works: you have the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) which has an interpretation. Massachusetts’ electronic signature and lien was one of the ones that was initially done, one of the first test cases. As you can see in this one, we’re a signature car titles, one of the main signatories of it along with Carvana, Adessa, and a lot of other providers of these technologies.
GeorgiaAnother big one was in the state of Georgia for online notaries. Again, we signed off on this one. Car titles right here along with DocuSign. DocuSign was a big promoter of this because it’s online notaries. It was a right to the governor of Georgia in Atlanta to allow remote online notaries. This is a big deal. This is one that will set the stage for a lot of progress on online titles.
The Future of Electronic TitlesThe more these rules and regulations start to be promulgated in the various states, the more it will catch on like wildfire. It only takes a few states to get it done, and then the other states will see it, and we can use it as a model to transition to electronic titles. Gone are the days where you have to sign papers, wait for bulky titles to come in the mail. Lien releases and all the different types of title and registration processes will be a lot more streamlined, cheaper, and easier to do, and you won’t have to wait as long.
So if you’re looking to buy a used car, in addition to making sure the title’s good and all the paperwork’s good, you also want to make sure the condition of the vehicle is good. Here’s a great way to do that.
Lemon Squad Vehicle InspectionsThis is Lemon Squad. They’re a nationwide company that does inspections on vehicles, and they are able to look at cars almost everywhere. It’s pretty reasonable too if you look at it; you know they charge between, you know, $220 to $300, maybe $286 for a car. And it’s not too bad to have an inspection on a vehicle. You can also add on a consultation for $50
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Carfax ReportNow back to your video. On the phone, you can do a Carfax for $35. So if you’re looking to buy a used car, this is a great way to make sure that what you’re buying is not going to break down on you and that you have a professional inspect it to make sure it’s all good.
RecommendationSo, I would recommend looking at this as an option or really any legitimate inspection company. But this is one that, that’s all they do. They’re not like a garage that fixes stuff. They are a company that specializes in inspection.
DisclaimerSo, Lemon Squad, something we don’t—we’re not associated with them. We don’t get paid by them. We’re not affiliated with them or sponsored by them. But they are a company that might be helpful to some of our clients looking at buying a used vehicle.
Expert ConsultationsThank you for watching. Remember you can access live one-on-one personal consultations with a licensed private investigator, a licensed commercial insurance broker, licensed certified real estate title examiner, also a certified civil court mediator. So if you have a need to talk to an expert in any of these fields or even a licensed building general contractor, you can click the link below actualhuman.com and arrange a live one-on-one undivided attention with a licensed expert where you can ask any questions, get information about your situation, and we’d be glad to help.
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