Make Sure You Transfer Your Car Title Properly

Here’s another good reason why you want to make sure that when you do a title transfer it’s done properly. Here’s a person who sold a vehicle many years before to a scrapyard and was getting $500 fines because the record wasn’t filed properly.

Ensuring Accurate Record-Keeping
You want to make sure that when you buy or sell a vehicle that all the records are properly recorded, properly signed, properly turned in. Because if you’re a prior owner and your car isn’t transferred to a new buyer, you might get fines for past due registrations, maybe storage fees if the car is impounded, and also you could be liable if anything happens with that car.

Contacting Prior Owners
So one of the things that we do quite often is contact prior owners to get the car out of their name so you don’t have any liability if the car is used in a crime or gets in an accident and you don’t have any proof that you sold it.

Case Study: Arizona Incident
This poor person sold their car many years before. This was in Arizona, I believe. Yeah, Phoenix, Arizona. They sold the car in 2017. Because the fact that it wasn’t filed properly, in 2023 they started getting notices that they owed $500 in abandoned vehicle charges because the car was dumped somewhere.

Importance of Documentation
So you want to make sure that when you sell a car, you also get good documentation, just as if when you buy a car. If you have any questions about proper title transfers, you can reach us at our website at the link below.

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Michigan Lost Title for Vehicle

So how do you get a duplicate title that’s been lost for your vehicle in the state of Michigan?

Online Form
Michigan has an online form that you can fill out on the computer without having to print anything out. It’s sent to the Secretary of State, and the SOS (Secretary of State) Office will process it within a week or two.

Fee and Transfer Option
It’s a fifteen dollar fee for that duplicate title. You can also transfer the vehicle on that document at the same time as you request a duplicate.

Notarization and Verification
Notarization is not required on that form as long as you’re the legal owner. And when you do it online, they’ll send you an e-mail verification to let you know that they’ve received it and they’re processing it.

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Illegal Vehicle Title

This is Dave at Consumers Title. Today we’re going to talk about illegal car titles. When you fill out a form or present a form to the DMV for an application for a duplicate title or any other type of transfer, those forms are implied that the statements are correct. In some cases, it’s under oath either by a signature or by statute. That means that what you’re saying you’re guaranteed to be under oath, and there’s penalties for perjury. Sometimes it’s a criminal fine, sometimes they’re civil fines.

Consequences of Incorrect Statements
The worst-case scenario is that a criminal fine could have long-standing impacts on your personal life. Best-case scenario is the invalid title that’s issued could be revoked if the statements are incorrect. The DMVs do regular audits of paperwork to match up patterns.

Common Examples of Fraudulent Titles
Here are the common examples of where titles are issued fraudulently or through incorrect representations. One is mechanic’s liens. Mechanic’s lien is a legitimate process for certain types of professional companies to get a title: towing companies, repair companies, body shops, storage companies. But in order to have that mechanically and be valid, there has to be a certain process where that vehicle got to the mechanic, had to be legitimately presented to that garage for repairs by the owner, and then the owner didn’t pay for them. If it’s just used for somebody who bought a car that lost the title to get a title, that’s an illegal title.

Skip Titles
The next example is skip titles, where ownership has been jumped from one to another without proper documentation. Many states are cracking down and revoking titles and issuing tax penalties because of skipped or jumped titles where owners don’t recognize their name on the title.

Abandoned Car Process
Abandoned car process is another one. Abandoned car title is a legitimate process in some states to get a title of a car that was legitimately abandoned. It’s not designed to get a title for somebody who lost their title, and if the representations are made otherwise, that could be an illegal title.

Salvage Titles
Salvage titles are where a prior repair or damage occurred, and it’s got a stamp on it. Sometimes an individual wants to undo that Salvage title or turn it into some other title brand. Even an attempt to do these things in some cases is a crime, whether you do it or a title agent does it on your behalf under a power of attorney.

Conclusion
An illegal title can have serious consequences for the person who applies for it or even the person who obtains the title at a later date.

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Vehicle Title Lender out of Business

Identifying a Subsequent Asset Holder
First thing to do is see if there’s a subsequent asset holder meaning that was that lender bought out did they sell their assets to another lender sometimes you can find that online even news articles that say XYZ bank was sold to a BC bank.

Checking for Statutory Release
There may be a statutory release meaning that if the loan was originated more than five or seven or ten years ago by statute that lien is released and you can get that from the DMV.

Using Title Transfer to Erase Lien
In some cases the document of title transferred to you will help erase that lien if you can show that the vehicles transfer to you and you can document that the lender or that the seller paid off their loan or if they have receipts that may be something which shows that the loan has been paid and they’re both there therefore that the lender has to give you a lien release.

Obtaining a Court Order
If they don’t you can get a court order to erase that Lane and then get a clear title in your name.

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Auto Dealer Floor Plan out of Trust

Understanding “Out of Trust” in Auto Dealerships
What does it mean when they say that an auto dealer is out of trust on their floor plan? Well, a floor plan is a credit line that a dealership will have for their inventory. Look, if you’re a dealership and you have 200 cars and they’re an average of $30,000 apiece, that’s six million dollars worth of cars, and most dealerships don’t have or don’t want to put six million dollars of their money sitting on their front lot.

How Floor Plans Work
So what they do is they get a line of credit from a bank. When cars come in—you see the big truck pull up in front of the dealership—every time a car rolls off that truck, the amount for that car is paid from the dealership to the manufacturer on that credit line. The bank just wire transfers the money to Ford or Toyota, whoever it is. The dealership now has it on their credit line. When they sell the car, they’re supposed to pay it off that credit line.

Handling Car Titles
Now, some lenders will hold the titles for those cars until it’s paid off. Some lenders trust the dealership to hold the titles, and when they sell it, they use it to register the car for the buyer. When a dealership does not pay off the car as soon as it’s sold, that violates that trust they have with the bank. That’s what’s called out of trust.

Consequences of Being “Out of Trust”
So what happens is a dealership, if they need some spending money or if they’re low on cash or if their cash flow is tight, they’ll sell five or six cars in a weekend. That might be, let’s say, $150,000-$200,000 worth of inventory. They’ll keep that money and not pay off the cars right away. That gives them some float; hopefully, they think that later on, they’ll have that money. But what happens is it becomes a domino effect. The more they borrow, the more they’re out of trust.

Discovery and Audits
Eventually, the lender will discover that their inventory’s not being paid off. They’ll come in, audit the store, find out that they’re out of trust, and either shut the dealership down or put them on curtailment, which means that they can’t hold the titles and they have to pay off some of this money.

Dealing with Out of Trust Sales
The reason I’m saying this: if you have a vehicle where the dealership sold it to you and they were out of trust and never had the title from the lender, that’s something you need to deal with. The dealership and sometimes even DMV and law enforcement need to ensure that your claims are handled. Most states have a victim fund that all dealerships pay into that can satisfy the claims from people who have vehicles that are out of trust.

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