Electric Vehicles Are Gaining MomentumOkay, electric vehicles are coming on strong. New data from the automotive industry shows that 10 percent of new vehicles sold in 2022 were EVs. It’s a big deal. It’s getting to be more of a critical mass. When it’s one or two percent, that’s kind of a very slim margin, almost a rounding error for the car market. Now that you’re at 10, and presumably 2023 will be higher, electric vehicles are a significant portion of the new cars sold.
Implications for All DriversWhat does that mean for you? Even if you don’t have an electric vehicle, it’s going to change some of the automotive driving experiences and resources in the marketplace. For example, you might see more charging stations at gas stations. Shell Oil has bought up an EV charging company for 169 million. What does that tell you? They may be putting some of these charging stations at gas stations.
Preparing Your Home for EVsAnother thing you might want to do is anytime you’re upgrading something at your house that requires electrical, go ahead and put a charger in your garage. Even if you don’t have an electric vehicle, many times the cost of adding an EV charging circuit, a 220 circuit, is the labor. If you already have an electrician there, or if you’re already moving something around in your garage, adding that charging port, it’s really just a plug, is very minor. The cost of the hardware is very minimal. You can buy, you know, five or six feet of, you know, or number two wire. You can buy the little, um, plug, the 220 plug in a bracket for less than a hundred dollars. The hard part is the labor of hooking it up to your breaker box or your service box. If you have an electrician out already, if you have all the parts, you can even mount it on the wall, run the wire, just leave it dangling. You might be able to have that done cheap.
Future-Proofing Your PropertyAt some point, you’re going to need it, right? At some point, you’ll have an electric vehicle, or even if you sell your house before you buy one, the next buyer is going to have one. So having that there might be an advantage.
Planning for an EV FutureThe other thing you can do is start to look at your usage and your trips to see where are their charging stations. How many miles are you driving? What range do you need? Because electric vehicles are increasing dramatically. Look, 10 percent of the market is a big deal. And if you have a gasoline vehicle, or both of your vehicles are gasoline, starting to anticipate how electric vehicles are going to impact your life is an important thing to do. Because it might help you decide where you’re going to live, what activities you’re going to partake in, and even employment to make sure that it matches the EV future where gasoline vehicles are less common and even in the minority.
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So how do you title and register a vehicle that you basically made in your garage, or it’s a replica or some custom car without having a prior vehicle base underneath it? Like if you take an old ’69 Camaro and redo it and customize it, even if you make it into a hot rod or a retro mod, you have a car with a VIN number that it started with. What if you start from scratch and you have no VIN number, no chassis?
Kit Car or Assembled Vehicle ProcessWell, in most states there’s a process called a kit car or an assembled vehicle, they call it in some states. California has a program called the SB100, and SB100 is a method for registering vehicles that are specially constructed cars. A lot of these are for the movie industry. We’ll talk about that momentarily, and some people make what they call a garage creation that now you want to bring on the road. It might be a replica of an old car, Shelby Cobras are very common, it might be like a Batmobile, something totally custom, or some other type of vehicle, maybe a race car.
SB100 Limitations and ApplicationThe problem with California is they only give out 500 of these per year, that’s a limit. A lot of these are pre-allocated to the movie industry because they have to build cars to use in movies that are customized. So some of them go to the movie industry, and you’re not going to find this over the counter at the DMV. You have to do this through the main branch in Sacramento because some of the people at DMV have never heard of this. You can get these vouchers anytime during the year if they’re available.
Steps in the Registration ProcessIf they’re available, you have to go through a few step process. First, you have to get the paperwork from the DMV; they have all the paperwork. Make sure you keep all of your invoices so that they know how the car was built. They’re going to charge you tax on it. You’re going to have to have paperwork required throughout the build process. Then you’re going to have to get the California Highway Patrol to inspect the vehicle. They’re looking for stolen parts; they’re going to make sure there’s no parts on it that have VIN numbers from other vehicles that are stolen.
Vehicle Inspection and VIN AssignmentSo if you buy a door from another car, make sure it’s not a stolen car because they’re going to check that vehicle out. They’re also going to create a new VIN number, and they are going to be the ones that put it on the car. They’re not just going to hand you a metal tag and say do whatever you want with it; they want to put it on the car with tamperproof rivets. They don’t want you switching it to another car.
Mechanical and Performance InspectionsThen you’re going to have to get a mechanical inspection for lights and brakes to make sure that it’s safe for the road. And then they do what’s called a bar exam. This is a performance examination. They put the car on a dyno, but they also check things like carbon monoxide isn’t leaking into the car, things like gasoline isn’t leaking out of the fuel system. It’s a safety thing.
Rules and RestrictionsCalifornia talks about some of the rules on this too, where it’s not for resale. You can’t be a company that’s building these to resell. Obviously, at some point, if you decide to sell it, you can, but if you’re reselling it as a manufacturer, that’s not what they want to do. It’s not constructed by a licensed manufacturer. So, you’re a private person, and it does not include a vehicle which has been repaired by replacing parts, meaning that if you buy a vehicle that’s a salvage or a junk or a car that’s damaged and you just replace it with the same parts, that’s not what they want to do.
Smog and Verification RequirementsYou also have to go through smog, and you have to go through this vehicle verification process. You have to have a statement of construction that you complete, how you constructed the vehicle, primarily constructed by me, component part information, statement of facts. You have to go through this entire form and submit this properly to the DMV.
ConclusionNow, if you’re not in California, it doesn’t matter. This process is an example of what most states have for an assembled vehicle, kit car, maybe a race car that you want to put on the road. Every state has something similar; they call it different things. So if you have a vehicle that’s been literally constructed from scratch in your backyard from multiple parts and it’s not really a car that existed before and you just modified it, building it from the ground up, the SB100 kit car assembled vehicle is a way to have it be designated as a vehicle, and then you can go about getting a title.
Watch our YouTube video: https://youtu.be/3mXOMZvBlkU?si=LTItki-Njw3-KYki
You’ve probably seen in the news where the automotive retailer Carvana is having all kinds of problems with its company. Their stock is down, there’s title problems, some states are canceling their dealer’s licenses, some states even the attorneys general are filing prosecutions for violations in those states. Today we’re going to talk about one specific problem that Carvana is having that affects consumers directly, and that is title problems. Why are they having title problems? What is behind it? Why does a licensed new car dealer have a problem with something as simple as a vehicle title? Don’t forget to put your comments below and questions that you have about this subject so we can interact with you and answer some of your questions and put them in future videos.
Carvana’s Title ProblemsSo here you have a large national automotive dealer chain, one of the largest in the country, selling cars to consumers and not giving them a legal title document. Why is that? Why would a legitimate large vehicle dealership not just give a title? How hard could it be? They paid the money, they signed all the paperwork, so why can’t the customer get their title for their car? They need the title. They have to present it to the DMV to get license plates to get ownership proof. What’s the problem with the title?
Reasons for Missing TitlesWell, there’s a couple reasons why a car dealership would not have a title. First of all, they’re not supposed to sell a car unless they have the title, but there’s a couple reasons why it might occur. First of all, worst-case scenario, the vehicle’s reported stolen. It’s a stolen car. Well, that’s not what’s going on with Carvana. It’s not stolen cars. Second reason is the title was somehow lost or damaged at the dealership after they bought it. Because you know, when the dealership buys a car, they normally get these cars from auctions. Auctions like Mannheim, Odessa, local auctions like Southern. They buy these vehicles and they get a title. Well, sometimes the dealership might lose it or it gets damaged. That’s a very rare event. It’s not something that would happen as frequently as what’s happening with Carvana. Even though they sell a lot of cars, they’re not going to lose that many title certificates. They’re not going to damage that many title certificates because a title is an actual paper document. It’s not electronic, it’s not online, it’s not crypto, it’s a paper form. They’re not losing the titles.
Administrative IssuesAnother reason why customers aren’t getting titles is maybe Carvana has the title, but they’re just not getting around to doing the paperwork. Maybe they’re understaffed. Maybe their title department is not handling the transfers properly. From all reports from the company itself, from the investigations that have been done, it doesn’t seem like that’s the problem. It doesn’t seem like they don’t know what they’re doing because it’s not really that hard. You don’t have to know that much about processing a title to figure out how to do it. In fact, individual consumers do it all the time. When you buy a car on Facebook or Craigslist or OfferUp, you transfer a title, you sign the back, hand it to the buyer, it’s done. It’s not that hard to figure out. It’s not a complicated part of selling vehicles. In fact, there’s dozens of YouTube videos, even on our channel, on many other channels, that tell you how to transfer a title. So it’s not like they don’t know what they’re doing. The time it takes to transfer a title isn’t a lot of time. It’s way less time than it takes to do the paperwork for the loan, do the paperwork with the customer. Look, they have a process in place to transport vehicles to a customer’s front door with a tow truck you’ve seen on commercials. So if they have a way to figure that out, it’s not like they don’t have the ability to have a title transfer department. That’s not the problem either.
Financial ConsiderationsWhat could be happening has to do with loans. And again, we have no evidence of this. We’re not accusing anybody of this, but this is one possible reason why Carvana is not transferring titles. It could be that they physically don’t have the title in their possession for a vehicle they bought. Why would that be? Well, just like consumers, large automotive retailers, Carvana being one of them, but even any other large dealership you drive by every day, the Ford store on the corner, the big Toyota dealership in town, CarMax, AutoNation, all the big automotive companies, or even small dealerships, they get loans on their cars, on their inventory. They get a loan from either their corporate financing bank. So if you’re a large dealership, you have a commercial loan from some local bank or maybe Chase or Bank of America, and that commercial loan helps you grow your business, fund your operations, and give you an inventory line of credit. That inventory line of credit is called a floor plan line of credit. Floor plan comes from showroom floor, right? The floor of your dealership has all your cars on it. Even some furniture stores have floor plans to finance all their inventory. If you add up the inventory in large automotive or large retailing companies, electronics, automotive, furniture, there’s a lot of money sitting there. In a car lot, there could be five, ten, fifteen million dollars worth of cars. Most dealerships don’t have that cash laying around, so they get a line of credit to finance these cars. Well, when you get that line of credit, the banks hold the title. You get that fifteen million dollar line of credit, the cars are sitting on your front lot. They let you have the cars, but they hold on to the title certificates until you pay for them, until you pay off that loan. So when you sell a car to a consumer, you get the money from that sale, you give it to the bank, they give you the title, and you give it to the customer. Well, what if you sell the car to that consumer and you don’t have, you need money, you’re short on cash. Maybe you don’t pay the bank loan off right away. The bank’s gonna hold that title. Maybe that’s why you don’t have the title to give to the customer.
Possible Loan IssuesDo we know that to be true? No, but this has happened before. There’s been many new car dealerships, big, huge high-end dealerships that have gone out of business because they got behind on their floor plan line of credits, called being out of trust. It happens every month. You read about a dealership that happens to you. You wouldn’t think that it would happen to somebody like Carvana, but if you have money problems, if you’re a big company, your money problems are bigger. Bigger company, bigger problems. There’s another financing arm that dealerships take advantage of, and that’s the auction credit department. When you buy cars from an auction, a lot of times the auction will say, “Look, you bought all these cars, you don’t have to pass right away. You bought ten cars today, they’re twenty-five thousand a piece. That’s two hundred fifty thousand, quarter million dollars in one day. Don’t worry about it, just take the cars, put them on your lot. When you sell them, give us the money.” Because auctions know that most dealerships sell their cars within fifteen, twenty, thirty days. Most dealerships have a thirty-day turn. If you have an inventory vehicle that’s more than forty-five days old, you got to get rid of it. That’s old inventory. It’s stale. You got to get rid of it. So most auctions figure, “Look, they’re good for it. They’re going to sell it. They’re not going anywhere, and they don’t have the title until they pay us. So we’re safe.” So the auction could be holding the title. Now again, if the dealership, whether it’s Carvana or anybody else, sells that car for let’s say thirty thousand to make a five thousand profit and decide, “Look, we’re short on payroll, we’re short on taxes, we don’t have enough money to run our operations. Let’s keep that thirty thousand, use it for some other things, and we’ll catch up with that sale later at the auction.” Is that happening? We don’t know, but this is one reason why titles might not be in possession of a dealership.
Complex Financial ScenariosWhat if it’s both? What if a dealership, generic dealership, and we won’t pick on Carvana, but what if a dealership buys a car from an auction and gets a float on their money? They finance it, they ship the car to the dealership. When it gets here, they call up their floor plan lender and says, “Hey, put this car in our credit line. Okay, we put it on for twenty-five thousand.” Now they have an extra twenty-five thousand plus a free car. Now they sell it to a customer for thirty thousand. They get that money. They have fifty-five thousand cash, and they haven’t come out of pocket yet for that vehicle. Could that happen? In theory, it could. It remains to be seen whether or not that’s what’s going on behind the scenes at a place like Carvana. It may not be. But for that many cars in many, many different states, for a large operator like Carvana to have title problems where there’s investigations and look, they’re willing to let their license be revoked by a state rather than fixing title problems. How bad does that have to be? If you’re a car dealership, your license is the only thing keeping you in business. If you don’t have a license, you’re out of business. And there are literally some locations for Carvana that have been revoked and yanked their licenses, and they’re shut down. So how bad does it have to be to let the licensing bureau yank your license? Wouldn’t you fix that unless you don’t have the money?
Permits and ComplianceThere are even some new Carvana locations that are in the process of being built. They’ve done site work, they bought the real estate, they’re starting to build that big vending machine tower. And because of the fact they’re not in compliance, their permits are getting pulled for their new location. So again, how bad does it have to be? Look, every company can maybe do something a little bit wrong or do something procedural or paperwork and get a violation or get a fine or maybe get a reprimand. But in order for a license to be revoked, it’s pretty serious. Most state licensing bureaus don’t pull your license unless it’s very, very serious, right? They give you a fine, they give you a write-up. You see it all the time in the newspaper, you know, restaurant gets a fine for, you know, maybe having, you know, leaving dirty dishes out. You may see, you know, an employer get a fine for not having the right kind of, you know, cones blocking, you know, construction workers, whatever. But you almost never see licenses get revoked. Carvana licenses are getting revoked, so that’s a pretty extreme event to have happen. The question is why?
Conclusion and SpeculationWe don’t know at this point. It’s not in the news yet. If there is a financing problem or a cash flow problem where these vehicles have loans on it, that will probably be the last thing anybody finds out about. That’ll be kind of like the, you know, the last piece of the onion that gets peeled back after everything else crashes. You know, as of today, their stock is down about thirty bucks. At one point it was three hundred fifty, three hundred sixty. It’s a ninety percent discount. There are the license revocations. That’s in the news. There are fines. That’s in the news. If it’s something as serious, if it’s something as serious, remember I said if, as this financing issue, that’s going to be the last thing that Carvana wants out there. Because that implies things like securities violations, stock manipulation, false reporting. And again, if that’s what they’re doing, which again, we have no reason to think that it is, that will be one of the last things that comes out. But at this point, we don’t know why there’s title problems. It’s just not it. This never happens. This kind of severe title problems at a legitimate new car or high-end used car type operation. You don’t see this. So we’re all very curious to see why. Purely speculation. This is one reason it could be. It could be unpaid financing, unpaid loans behind the scenes for the inventory.
Call to ActionIf you are a buyer of a vehicle at Carvana and you have information, put in the comments or send us an email. If you have title problems, put in the comments or an email. We only hear more information from the front lines about what might be happening with this retailer. Been in the automotive and title business for over thirty years, and we have seen dealerships go out of trust, dealerships not pay off their floor plan, dealerships not pay off their credit lines, but it’s never been something this big. So if that is what’s happening, this would be a very unique and significant situation. Let us know what you think in the comments. Keep an eye out for future videos, and we’ll keep you up to date.
Today in our ongoing series about vehicle lien releases, we’re going to look at some documents and instructions on how to obtain a lien release for a motor vehicle, including some specific scenarios where the lien holder may be out of business, may not be able to be contacted, and what are your responsibilities as a vehicle owner.
Example Instructions from New York Department of Motor VehiclesFirst, let’s take a look at an example of instructions for lien release. This happens to come from the New York Department of Motor Vehicles. How to obtain a lien release on a vehicle is pretty straightforward. That’s the question on everybody’s mind: how do you get a lien release? We know what a lien is, so we’re not going to get into the definition of a lien.
Satisfying Loan TermsHow to obtain the lien release? Well, first, you have to satisfy the terms of a loan by paying the balance of the loan back to the lender. Now, this is assuming the loan is paid off. If the loan is not paid off, there are still some methods that can be used to get a lien release, and we’ll talk about those a little bit later in this video. But the most common method is you have to pay back the balance.
Notifying the Titling AuthorityHowever, if you notice, this is only step one. Just because you paid off the loan does not automatically make the lien go away from the title. Here’s why: when you pay your last payment to that lender, what they normally do is they mark your account paid, just like any other loan account. They stamp your title paid and they mail it to you, or maybe they’ll mail you a lien release document. They normally do not notify the titling authority like the Department of Motor Vehicles. So that lien is still in their records. The Department of Motor Vehicles or the title agency in your state, whatever it’s called, normally does not know your lien is paid off when you pay off the last payment. Only you know it and the bank knows it. So now you have to get that information to the DMV.
Receiving and Requesting a Lien Release DocumentSo normally what will happen is the lender will give you a lien release document, which is an official document. Here’s what one looks like, and it’s an application for removal of lien. This happens to come from North Carolina, and we’ll come back to this momentarily. The next thing you need to do is, if you don’t receive the lien release, submit a request to the lender. This is a very common scenario. A lot of times the lien holder will either not send it to you or it might get lost. If that’s the case, you want to get another one as soon as possible.
Proper Method of Requesting a Lien ReleaseNow, it’s important how you request that. You don’t want to do it by phone. You don’t want to call them up. You don’t want to do it by email. You don’t want to do it through their website. The only way you want to do it is in writing, and there’s a very specific way of doing it. Let’s jump to that right now before we get to the other steps.
Preparing the Lien Release RequestIf you are needing a lien release, get the form that’s the official lien release form for your state. Here’s the one for North Carolina. It’s an application for removal of lien. What you do is you fill it out: year, make, body style, model, VIN number, owner, lien holder information, and prepare this on behalf of the lender and send it to the lender. Don’t trust that they’re going to do the work because here’s why: all the people working at that bank are doing other jobs. If you just call them and say, “Hey, get me a lien release,” first of all, they have to find this form. Did you know about this form? Well, they don’t either. So they’re going to maybe try to find it, and as soon as they run into difficulty, they’re going to go back to their other job. So do the work for them. You may not think you have to, it’s not fair to do it, but if you want your lien release, this is what we recommend doing.
Mailing the RequestSend it to them by mail. In addition to sending it to them, put a return envelope already filled out with your name and address and a stamp. You want to make it as easy as possible for that lien holder to send it back because if there’s any work involved where that person at the bank has to do any kind of work, they might just throw it in the trash and not deal with it.
Submitting the Lien Release to the DMVSo then what do you do once you get that lien release? You want to go to the DMV and submit it to them and verify that the lien is removed. Okay, you don’t want to take their word for it that you just mailed it to them and it’s done. You want to verify that it’s done because if you find out three or four years later the lien’s still on your car, it’s going to be harder to take it off then.
Copy of Title and Lien ReleaseSometimes you might have to provide a copy of the title along with the lien release. However, most states, like New York, don’t give you a title if there’s a lien.
Responsibilities of the Lien HolderNow, what are the responsibilities of the lien holder? This is where you might actually have some leverage. Upon satisfaction of a security interest, a lien, the lien holder shall immediately execute a release of security interest and mail the release to the owner. The Department of Motor Vehicles encourages lien holders to cooperate by mailing or delivering a lien release immediately to the lien holder, and if not, you might be subject to action. All regulated financial institutions shall release liens and deliver lien releases no later than three business days after clearance. Now, lien holders break this rule all the time, but in most states, there’s a requirement under the law that they deliver to you a lien release document within a certain period of time. Three days is kind of quick. Most states require 30 days or a month and a half, but they have requirements, and that’s leverage you can use to do that.
Obtaining a Lien Release from a Closed or Failed BankHere’s another question that comes up: obtaining a lien release from a closed or failed bank. This is where it gets tricky. If a bank has been closed or they’re not operating anymore, you still have to get a signed lien release. They’re not going to take your word for it at the DMV that this form is okay without their signature. So what do you do? You have to look up who’s authorized to sign on behalf of that closed lender. The FDIC might have information, National Credit Union, Secretary of State. When we do this, we do a full research on that lien holder. We find out who’s their registered agent, who is their admitted carrier, who maybe is the merged entity, and we will prepare this document and we’ll send it out to all the different potential authorized signers because all you need is one. But you’re going to have to do some research to find out who is the authorized party that can sign on behalf. Because if the DMV gets this form and it’s not signed or not signed by the right person, it has to be notarized too. They’re not going to accept it. They’re just going to kick it back. So you want to make sure that you do the research and find out where that lien holder’s authorized agent is.
Importance of Authorized AgentsJust because they shut down doesn’t mean that the lien goes away. And here’s the other thing: most financial institutions, when they stop operating as a lien holder, they don’t just disappear. They don’t just shut the door, turn off the lights, and walk away. Their assets go to some other entity, another bank, another lender because they’re worth money. Even the mailing list of that bank is worth money. So some other bank or institution has a right to the assets and activity of that lender, so they can sign that lien release. You have to find out who that is. That’s the tricky part, and that’s where the research comes in. And usually, we average about an hour or two worth of research to find out who those lien holders are. And you can do the same thing yourself if you need that lien release.
Alternative Document: Letter of Non-InterestNow, one last thing about this document: make sure that you get the proper document. Every state has an official lien release form like this one. However, sometimes a bank or lien holder is not comfortable signing a lien release because they don’t know the lien is released. If it’s an older loan, it’s charged off, written off, they’re out of business, they might not know about that lien being released. They don’t see it in their system. So instead of a lien release, you might offer them the option of signing what’s called a letter of non-interest. It’s another official form that is an alternative document to a lien release where the lender can sign that instead to clear the lien off of the title.
ConclusionHopefully, that gives you information. You can reach our website car titles.com which has more information about how to get a lien release. We have all the forms, we have all the instructions, and there’s also title services available. The main thing is, though, if you have a lien on the vehicle that you want to title, you want to get it off as soon as possible so you don’t run into problems where the vehicle is not legally yours.
One of the most common types of issues we deal with clients involves difficult title problems for motor vehicles. The reason it’s difficult is the title is a legal government document that’s issued only by government agencies, and unless you have all your ducks in a row, they’re going to give you a hard time on issuing you a title. This is why a lot of people run into these types of problems getting a new title in their name for a motor vehicle.
Overview of the PresentationWe’re going to jump right in and talk about a few subjects. In the presentation, we will cover the requirements for getting a title, the difference between a duplicate title and a title recovery, abandoned vehicles and the misconceptions surrounding them, mechanics liens, the famous or infamous Vermont loophole, lien releases and lien holder issues, bonded titles, court order titles, and how all these relate to the new calendar year 2023. If you have questions during the presentation, type them into the chat. We’ll keep an eye on them, and if they’re things that will be covered in our regular content, we’ll address those when that subject comes up. We’ll also have some time at the end to answer other questions from the chat or from our live viewers that are emailing in. Expect about 25 minutes for the primary presentation and additional time for questions.
What is a Title and Why is it Needed?The first topic to get into is what a title is and why it’s needed. A title is a legal government document, as you can see in the picture on the left. This is an example of a vehicle title. Notice it is a certificate, not just a blank piece of paper. It’s not something you can print off from the Internet; it’s an official form, kind of like money, with scroll work and watermarks on the back. It’s issued by an agency, usually the Department of Motor Vehicles, Secretary of State, or Bureau of Motor Vehicles, depending on the state. Remember, you can’t buy a title from a company or download one from the internet; it only comes from the government agency.
Getting a TitleIf we look at an example from the state of Oregon, one of the requirements for getting a title is having the original title or ownership document from the last owner. In order to get a new title, you’re supposed to have the last title from the last owner signed over to you. But if you’re here watching this, it’s probably because you want to know how to get a title if you don’t have the old title. If you had the old title, you wouldn’t need much help; you could just bring it to the DMV, turn it in, and they would give you a new title.
Duplicate Title vs. Title RecoveryA duplicate title is a topic many people ask about. A lost title or duplicate title is when you had a title with your name on it printed from the DMV, and you just lost it and want to get a replacement. The only person who can apply for a replacement title certificate is the person whose name is on the title records. Nobody else can apply for a lost title duplicate replacement. If you try to get one as a replacement, they’re going to look it up and say, “No, this title is in the name of Joe Schmoe, and you’re not Joe Schmoe.” The alternative is to pursue other methods such as bonded titles, civil liens, or the Vermont loophole.
Bonded Titles and AlternativesYou could pursue a bonded title, a civil lien (court order title), the Vermont loophole, or a prior owner transfer. We will cover all these in more detail. It’s important to avoid mechanics liens or abandoned vehicles. Specifically, an abandoned vehicle is a status where everyone abandons it, and you have to surrender it to the state, which then auctions it off.
The Vermont LoopholeThe Vermont loophole is infamous, often mentioned in various media. It involves applying by mail to the state of Vermont to get a registration ownership without a title. You only need a bill of sale. However, there are downsides, such as paying sales tax based on the vehicle’s full retail book value and the risk of your state not accepting the Vermont registration as a title.
Civil Lien (Court Order Title)A civil lien or court order title is a powerful way to get a title. You file documents with the court in your county, including a petition, a letter of non-interest, and an affidavit. The court may require proof of possession and identity, and then they give you a judgment of ownership, which you can use to get your title from the DMV.
Bonded TitlesA bonded title involves getting a surety bond that backs up your ownership claims. It is like an insurance policy for the DMV, guaranteeing your statements. However, it’s a branded title, which can make it difficult to sell or finance. Some states don’t offer bonded titles, so you need to check if your state does.
Prior Owner TransferA prior owner transfer involves getting the last owner to get a duplicate title. You should send an official form by mail, filled out and typed up, to the last owner, making it easy for them to sign and return. Do not try contacting them by phone or email, as they might ignore you.
Lien ReleasesIf your vehicle has a lien on it, you need a lien release form signed to clear the title. Send the form to the lien holder, and if they don’t respond, you might need to get a court order title. Even if there’s money owed on the vehicle, many times the lien holder will release the lien if you contact them as an innocent third party.
Special Cases and Additional ResourcesFor vehicles with brands like salvage or rebuilt, you need to follow additional steps before getting a title. There are resources available on various websites, such as car titles, lien titles, auction titles, and more. For more complicated cases involving dealerships going out of business or needing investigative services, consult with a title agent or private investigator.
DMV Contact and Damaged TitlesContacting the DMV can be challenging. If you need to get information, it’s best to go in person and get answers in writing. If you have a damaged title, get a new title with your name on it as soon as possible. Titles are very important documents, and getting them properly processed is crucial for ownership and future transactions.
ConclusionIn summary, dealing with title issues requires understanding the specific requirements and processes for obtaining a new title. Whether it’s through a duplicate title, bonded title, civil lien, or other methods, it’s important to follow the correct procedures and be aware of potential pitfalls. For further guidance, refer to the available resources and consult with experts if needed.
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