Dealer Closed Vehicle Title Problems

So you’re probably thinking if you buy a car from a licensed dealership you’re in good shape, you’re safe as far as the title is concerned. Well, not so fast. Here’s another example of where a dealership closed and went out of business, and this is no small dealership mom and pop store. This is a large chain primarily out of Florida called Off Lease Only. Off Lease Only originally started out as purchasing lease buybacks and selling those to the public, but they branched out into other types of vehicles and they filed for bankruptcy and suddenly just fired all their employees, shut down all their locations.

Consumer Impact of Dealership Bankruptcies
So what does that mean for consumers? Well, there could be a lot of repercussions that recent buyers may not be aware of that have to do with vehicle titles. How does that work if a dealership goes out of business? How do the titles work for the cars that were recently sold? Well, first you have to look at what happens when you buy a car from a dealership. Three things happen. First of all, they take the title that they had for that vehicle and they sign the back of it over to you, and a title, as you know, is a certificate that looks like this and that title is then assigned to the buyer.

Title Processing and the Role of Dealerships
The dealership then takes that title along with the title application that you signed as part of that transaction, and they send it to your local titling authority. So in most states, that agency is called the Department of Motor Vehicles. In some states, it’s called the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. A few states call it the Department of Transportation. In Illinois, it’s called the Secretary of State. That government agency is who issues titles. Remember, you can’t buy a title from a company, you can’t download one from the internet. It is a legal government document issued only by a government agency.

Title Submission and Associated Fees
So once that dealership takes the title from the last owner, signs it over to you, they send it along to the titling authority. So a new title certificate is issued in your name. Along with that title, they also submit the fees that went to getting that title transferred. In some states, you have to pay sales tax on the vehicle, you have to pay the title fee, the registration fee. Those are all collected by that dealership at the time that you purchased a vehicle. As part of your sales contract, they collected all of those fees, so they have to send those along to the titling authority, the Department of Motor Vehicles, with all your paperwork.

Dealership Bankruptcies and Title Processing Delays
So what happens if a dealership goes out of business? Well, first of all, they may not have had the title yet. Many dealerships have purchased vehicles recently from places like auctions, or in the case of Off Lease, some of their cars came from leasing companies. They may not have those titles in their office by the time they sell the vehicle. They want to sell them as fast as they can, so instead of waiting for the title, which may take a month or two, they sell it right away, and when it comes in, then they forward your application to the Department of Motor Vehicles. What happens if they shut down? Remember, the car dealership closed its doors for good, laying off hundreds of workers. Well, what if your title hasn’t been processed yet? What if it hasn’t been sent to the Department of Motor Vehicles yet? They don’t have any employees, they don’t have any locations, everything is shut down, so that may impact you getting your title.

Financial Institutions and Title Issues
Even if you finance the vehicle, you wouldn’t have received the title in the mail from the titling authority directly. That title would have been sent to your bank to finance your vehicle, and that bank may have been one that the dealership set up, it may have been your own credit union, but they would have received the title. Well, what happens after a few months when your bank doesn’t get the title? They’re going to start bothering you and saying, “Hey, where’s the title for this vehicle? We financed it, we need the title.” If you do not get them the title, they can actually convert your loan to a personal loan and increase your interest rate. They can even call your loan to say, “Look, if we don’t get the title, you have to pay us all the money back that you paid for the vehicle.” So the bottom line is that you have to make sure that your title gets from the dealership to that lender.

Ownership and Title Issues Without Financing
If you didn’t finance it, you would have the title in your hand, so you’re the legal owner. Well, if they didn’t actually get that title yet or if they didn’t send it to the Department of Motor Vehicles, that could be a problem. There’s other trouble that could come up. What if when they went bankrupt, they don’t have any more money? What if the money they collected from you for tax and registration and title fees is gone, right? This particular company literally went bankrupt, filed for bankruptcy. When a company files for bankruptcy, that means their funds are frozen until the bankruptcy trustee releases them for whatever reason. And they probably will, if the money’s there, they will release it, but that may take a few months. In the meantime, you’re driving without a title, and your registration may expire, your temp tag.

Worst-Case Scenario: Unpaid Vehicles
Here’s the worst possible scenario: what if they never paid for the vehicle? In many cases, when a dealership purchases a vehicle from an auction, from a bank, from some other source, they put it on what’s called a floor plan line of credit. They have a line of credit just like everybody else does; it’s like a big credit card. When they buy cars, they put the car on that line of credit. That lender holds the title for that vehicle. So when the dealership calls up that lender and says, “Hey, we sold that 2024 or 2023 Honda Civic,” the lender says, “Okay, give us the money for that car, and we’ll give you the title.” And they pay them off one at a time as they sell them. Well, what if they hadn’t paid for the car yet? Now your car is owned by that lender, floor plan lender. So until they get paid, they’re not going to release the title. Your money for that car already went to the dealership, and they went bankrupt, so that lender is never going to get paid. So that creates a problem. In many cases, those things work out through the courts, but it’s something you want to be aware of.

Steps to Take if You Bought from a Bankrupt Dealership
So what do you do if you’ve recently purchased a vehicle from a dealership that’s gone out of business or you financed the vehicle and that dealership went out of business? Well, first thing you want to do is start the process early. Start making filings for getting your vehicle. Most states have a victims’ restitution fund, where if you’re a victim of a scam from a dealership, and dealership going out of business qualifies as a scam, you can file against that fund, file a complaint with their licensing board. Second thing you might want to do is start filing for a court-ordered title to have the court declare you to be the owner of the vehicle by court order so that you can get justice and get your vehicle title in your hands with your name on it.

Additional Resources and Precautionary Measures
You can look at our links below; we have some more videos coming up about the court order title process. You can visit our website, cartitles.com. It’s something you can do yourself for free. We have all the instructions. We even have a couple of videos that will give you the details on how to do all that, but you may want to start that process early because the faster you start it, the faster you’re going to get your title. It’s not going to be quick. It’s not going to be within a few days, and you don’t want to be the last one in line to get a title from that out-of-business dealer. So be cautious.

Final Recommendations
What we recommend doing anytime you buy a car from a dealership, even if it’s a legitimate dealership or a larger dealership, before you give them money, before you sign on the dotted line, make them show you the title, right? They can’t give you the title because you haven’t purchased it yet, but have them at least flash it. Have them show you the title, make sure they have it in their hands, they’re not waiting for it to be paid off from a floor plan line of credit. If they can show you the title, at least now that’s one possible risk that’s been removed from your vehicle purchase decision. Do you have any questions? Reach us on our website, cartitles.com. We even have a help desk email. You can email [email protected]. As an email, we’d be glad to be of assistance.

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Court Ordered Title: Stop Getting The Runaround

So you ended up with a vehicle with no title, and you’re trying to get a legal title certificate. You’ve probably gotten the run around or no answers from the DMV or your titling authority, and you’ve been scrambling to try to get a title. It may have been weeks or months; sometimes, we have clients that have spent years trying to get a title.

Bonded Title and Loopholes
What do you do? Well, in some states, you could do a bonded title, but a lot of clients don’t want to do that because you have to buy a surety bond and your title is branded as bonded. In the past, people have tried to use some loopholes with, you know, Vermont or South Dakota or West Virginia, which always turn out to be rejected by your state, have a lot of fees, or sometimes flat-out been canceled.

Court Order Title
So what do you do? Well, the most powerful kind of most authority title option is a court order title. Now, I know a lot of times when people hear court order title, they don’t want to do it because they don’t want to go to court; they don’t want to deal with a lot of hassles. Well, court order title is not like Law and Order, Jack McCoy big courtroom scene where you’re battling it out. It’s usually done with paperwork, and even though it’s a little bit kind of a secret hidden method, all the information is available.

Courthouse Procedures
Here’s the thing: if you walk into your courthouse and say, “I want to do a court order title,” they’re not going to know what you’re talking about because they don’t do titles; they do court procedures. It’s kind of like walking into a court and saying, “I want to do a dog bite lawsuit.” They don’t categorize their cases based on what’s in the case, right? However, there’s a couple of clues you can use, and we’re going to look at a few counties that have very specific court-ordered processes.

Florida Example
First of all, we’ll look at the State of Florida. In Florida, there’s actually a state law; it’s section 4426 administrative order 2021-13. It says Florida law requires a purchaser of a motor vehicle to obtain a court order directing the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a title when such individual does not receive a title at the time of purchase. It’s right there; Florida law requires a court order title when you didn’t get a title. Now, Florida does have a surety bond process available, but it’s very limited. The vehicle has to be from Florida originally with the last title from Florida. It has to be within a certain year range, but other than that, it’s required that you do a court order title, and it has uniform procedures to ensure the DMV is made a party for the procedures.

Required Documents
So this is pretty common. This is a bulletin; it happens to be from Broward County, but this is the state law. What do you have to have? It goes through what all the documents you need, how to categorize them, how to fill them out, right? You need a petition, an affidavit, a letter of non-interest.

County Examples
And let’s take a look at some of the counties that have this. Here’s a complaint for declaratory judgment, right? Filed with the clerk’s office, here’s the complaint. You need a summons; you need to serve to the defendant, right? And in Hernando County, same thing: vehicle ownership information sheet. This is instructions for a court order title affidavit, vehicle title application. It tells you how it works, right? There’s ten steps. So it’s not something which is a hidden or secret or made-up process. However, if you walked into the clerk of court and said, “I want to do a court order title,” even though they have this, they may not be familiar with it. You have to walk in with all these forms completed, all these documents done, and probably a few other steps from their checklist just to show it’s not a made-up thing.

Ohio Example
This one happens to be from Ohio: “Insufficient evidence, let us help you make your court order title as simple as possible.” This is right from the county clerk, right? And they have about the same thing: eight or nine steps you have to do. Visit the clerk, visit the BMV, you have to do all these things. Step-by-step guide to apply for a court order title. This is Highland County: step one, step two. How many steps do they have? Four, five, six, eight. It’s almost like there’s always eight steps, right? It’s always the same thing: obtain a court order title for a motor vehicle.

Pennsylvania Example
Yeah, what county is this? This is Luzerne County. This is actually in Pennsylvania. Here’s another state that has it: scheduling order, petition. You notice there’s always a petition; there’s almost always an affidavit, and it’s a step-by-step process.

Additional Examples
What’s this one? This one is Lake County. I believe this is Ohio. The process is as follows: one, two, three. They probably have about eight steps, right? So the court order title process is not something that is imaginary. It’s offered by the state in order to get you a legal title certificate. This is what you want, right? You want a title. You don’t want just a car in your driveway with keys and possession but no title. You want to get an actual legal title. This is how you do it.

Alternatives and Recommendations
You can play around with a lot of other things: bonded title, trying to contact the prior owner, trying to get a lien release, trying to do some loophole from North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Vermont, Wyoming, right? You can play around with those all you want, but they’re always going to take longer and jump through more hoops than doing a court order title. Don’t be afraid of the fact that you hear the word court, right? You’re not gonna have to normally go through some big long jury court case. It’s usually done by mail. In fact, when we do it, we recommend to the client, when you have all these documents completed, don’t bring them to the courthouse in person. Send them by mail because when you bring them in person, the clerk who’s there might still not even know what it is, and they might tell you, “We don’t do this here. I don’t know what to do.” If you mail it, they have to put it on the docket. It’s given to a magistrate or given to a judge for them to take action on it.

Completing the Process
So what do you have to do? What are the steps you have to do? Well, the most important thing is getting the paperwork right. If you get the paperwork and forms right initially, that’s 90% of it. After they’re filed, the court is going to do some background check on the vehicle, make sure it’s not stolen, make sure there’s no open liens, people are looking for it, make sure there’s no other owners that want it back. Once they make sure your vehicle is legitimate and you have a clear vehicle, now they’re going to check you out to make sure that you have a good story, right? How you purchased the vehicle, where you got it from. Do you have any bill of sale or not? Do you have any receipts? Do you have any text messages? Once everything’s checked out, they’re normally just going to sign that judgment of ownership and give that to you to bring to DMV to get a title.

Additional Requirements
Now, if your state requires things like an inspection of the vehicle in order to get it titled or registered, you still have to do that. This doesn’t evade any other requirements. It just gets you a legal document so that you can get one of these, right? You can get a title, and you don’t have to pay a bond, right? Sometimes bonds are one and a half times the value of the vehicle. There’s probably some court filing fees you have to pay. If your state requires sales tax on the vehicle, you have to pay that just like you would if you had a title. You probably have to show a copy of your license to the court. Sometimes they’ll want to have you take a photo of the VIN number to prove that you’re in possession of the vehicle to make sure you’re not just getting a title for something you don’t have. But normally, that’s done by mail. Sometimes at the end of the process, they want you to come in to the lobby of the court, raise your right hand, and swear everything you said is true. But that’s usually once everything is done. It’s not like, like we talked about, a big Jack McCoy courthouse thing, Law and Order.

Conclusion
So consider the court order title. On our website, you’ll see instructions for how to do it for your county. We even have title consultation if you want some discussion with a title agent. You can even pay us to do the paperwork for you. So court order title is a good option when, as it says, if you did not receive title at the time of purchase, and even if you did, if you’ve lost it, it’s the same thing, right? Every county in the country—there’s 3,611 counties—has some type of process to do this. They may not call it court order title; they may call it something different, but at least you have the option as a backup. Remember, going to the court is like going over the head of the DMV. It’s like going to their boss. The DMV has certain limitations. If you bring them the old title for the vehicle, they can give you a new one. If you don’t have one, they’re not allowed by law to give you one, period. Even if they like you, even if they say, “Yeah, your story’s good,” they have to have something more than just your word and a bill of sale. So consider it. Look at all the options. Our website will tell you some other methods you may have. If you have any questions, reach us at cartitles.com or our help desk, [email protected], for email.

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Classic Car Title Crackdown & Vermont Loophole

So fans of this channel for years have been aware of the so-called Vermont loophole and going back probably 10 or 15 years it’s been a very common method to get a title for a vehicle if you’re missing some paperwork. In fact, at one point, magazine articles called the Vermont DMV America’s DMV because they titled so many vehicles all around the country.

The End of the Vermont Loophole
Well, as everybody knows now, that Vermont loophole has ended and even a couple of years ago we started to warn consumers about using this loophole. Many states looked unfavorably about this loophole going back even 2020 or 2019, so we recommended against it as a method of getting a title. Well, now that’s officially over. What do you do about getting a title? How do you get a title if you can’t go through the Vermont loophole and you’re missing documents?

Alternatives to the Vermont Loophole
Well, there’s actually methods of getting a title that were better than the Vermont loophole even when the Vermont loophole existed. We’ll talk about those momentarily, but before we do, keep this in mind too: the Vermont loophole cancellation is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just about the Vermont loophole being canceled; it’s about vehicles that are older classic cars being phased out of the population of vehicles.

Georgia and Japanese Imports
What do we mean by that? Well, in Georgia, they’re clamping down on these Japanese Imports, these mini trucks, and you’ve seen them on the roads, these little Kia cars and trucks, and these kind of mini pickup trucks that you’ve seen. The reason why they’re being phased out is because they’re called not safe to be driven on roads, and Georgia isn’t the only state. Many other states are starting to phase this in.

Impact on Classic Car Owners
Many owners of these vehicles counted on the fact that there was a 25-year-old loophole for importing vehicles that didn’t have to go through the same import procedures. That’s true; they don’t have to go through the import procedures to come into the country, but that doesn’t mean that the state has to accept those for registration.

California’s Restrictions on Classic Cars
Here’s another one: California. This is the big one. It’s going to restrict classic cars. Think about that. Let that sink in. California, the birthplace of cruising and the Beach Boys and all the old car culture, is going to ban old cars from driving on the road. It’s looking to institute a zero-emission zone soon, very, very soon. It’s going to allow local governments to gather information about classic cars. They’re already sending out surveys to classic car owners and how their owners use them.

California Leading the Way
We knew this was coming to the U.S. California would be the first, right? So you might say, I don’t live in California, I don’t care. Well, guess what? Like everything else that happens that is restrictive, California is probably the first place it’s going to happen. According to the call report, a survey was sent out to owners of classic cars from 1978 and earlier. Think about that. A 1978 isn’t really that old. I mean, classic cars from the 70s, I guess, but a lot of good cars are not necessarily classic, and asked about how many miles are on the odometer. They’re going to start tracking your mileage to make sure you’re not driving them too much.

Emission Zones and Mileage Tracking
The state should allow local jurisdictions to create zero-emission zones, and in those zones, you will not be able to drive cars that don’t meet current emissions. You don’t think that’s possible? Well, in London, they already have that. In other areas of the UK, they find people daily for violations. Justification for a full ban on older cars is climate change.

Impact on Older Cars
So the way that they’re going to go about doing this is first they’re going to start contacting owners of classic cars, asking them how much they use them, asking them how many miles they drive on them, and they might use that against you. They might create a database. Either way, between these classic cars, these import cheap trucks, the shutdown of the Vermont loophole, older cars or less mainstream cars that aren’t bought new from a dealership are at risk. It may take a few years.

Urgency to Get Titles and Registration
So our advice is if you have an older car, get it titled and registered soon because at some point you might not be able to. Well, how can you do it if you don’t have paperwork?

Court Order Titles
Give a quick blurb about the most powerful process to use, and that’s called a court order title, sometimes called declaratory relief, sometimes called a quiet title. This is from an attorney in Florida, and if you’re in Florida, you can contact them about doing this. We don’t know who they are; we just found their website.

Legal Advice on Court Order Titles
Recently, I have received a lot of phone calls about filing a lawsuit to establish ownership of a motor vehicle. A person goes to the motor vehicle and tells the person that I don’t have a title, and they tell you under these laws 3 19 28 and 86.011, the court can issue you a judgment of ownership. Some counties have some documents you can use for that; some don’t. It says here it’s better done with attorney’s assistance, but like he said many times, people think the value of the property doesn’t match how much you got to pay. Attorneys charge three, four hundred bucks an hour. They might charge eight or nine hours. It could be several thousand to do this with an attorney. Now, you don’t have to use an attorney; it’s not required.

DIY Court Order Titles
But this is the way you do it as a court order title, and you can check out our website. You see the link below about more information on court order titles. But in this day and age of cracking down on older cars, on import cars, and no more Vermont loophole, this is the power play. This is where you get, you go over the head of the DMV. DMV has certain limitations. They give you the runaround. It’s a lot of bureaucracy. If you go over their head to the court, the court can give you a judgment of ownership. You bring that to the DMV, slap it on the counter, and they have to give you a title.

Conclusion and Resources
So if you have more questions, you can email our help desk at [email protected]. We have a lot of great people there that can help you out. Glad to be of assistance, and you can use our website as a free consumer resource. We have videos like this one and instructional videos. We have over 800 documents you can download for free, and it’ll give you a good head start on fixing your title problem so that you can get your car on the road before the big crackdown comes and you can’t drive old, nice classic cars on the road anymore.

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New Loophole For Car Titles

So you have a car but you don’t have a title. It’s a problem. If you want to get a new title for a vehicle with your name on it, you have to do one of two things: first of all, you have to either already have a title in your name that you lost and get a duplicate (that’s not going to happen), or you have to find some way to convince the titling authority that you are eligible and it’s proper for you to have a title in your name. They’re not just going to take your word for it. By giving you a title with your name on it, they’re effectively taking away the ownership from somebody else. Somebody else has their name on that title record somewhere—it may not be in your state, maybe somewhere else, but somebody is the legal owner of that vehicle as far as the official government records are concerned.

Ownership and Titling Authorities
For them to give you a title in your name, they have to rip away that ownership from that person. Now, it’s probably true that that should happen. You know the story: you bought it, you have a bill of sale, maybe a lienholder or whatever, but the DMV doesn’t know that, or the titling authority doesn’t know that. They’re not just going to take your word for it because if they did, then anybody could get a title for any vehicle they wanted, right? There’s an easy way to do it. Don’t despair; there’s an easy way to do it. But I’m just telling you what really is going on. When you get a title, it’s not just you getting a piece of paper with your name printed on it. It’s them taking away somebody else’s ownership rights.

Importance of Legal Ownership
And the reason that you should want that to be the case is because if it was easy for anybody just to get a title just by filling out some forms, then no vehicle would be safe. Any vehicle you had in your driveway that’s in your name, somebody could come along when you go on vacation and say, “Hey, that’s supposed to be my car. Here’s a form, give me a title,” right? Having the keys, having possession means nothing. You have to have the legal ownership. So, how does it work? Well, in the past, many people who did not have proper paperwork did a little kind of backdoor loophole by going through Vermont. We’ve all heard about that for many, many years. It was a way to evade the proper procedure for your state to get a title, which you know you have to jump through a few hoops to do.

The Vermont Loophole
Vermont made it easy. It was legal, but it’s not what the states wanted. So, over many years, they cracked down. Some states refused to accept it. Now, it’s gone. You can’t do that anymore. Vermont’s gone. So, what do you do? Well, some states, you can do a bonded title, a surety bond title, and if your state is one of the states that allow for a bonded title, you can check out our website, cartitles.com. It’ll give you a list of all the states where you can do a bonded title. If your state is one of them, you could do a bonded title. But before you do that, remember there are some pitfalls of doing a bonded title. First, you have to purchase a surety bond for the vehicle. The surety bond you have to purchase normally is one and a half times the value of the vehicle.

Pitfalls of Bonded Titles
You purchase the bond, you bring that to the DMV, and they give you a title. The title will have your name on it, but it will also say “bonded” stamped in big red letters. That’s not a clean title. So if you look to sell it, trade it in, finance it, it might be a problem, right? Especially if you look to sell it and the buyer maybe lives in a state that doesn’t do bonded titles. They can’t even bring it there. The other thing is if anything ever comes up on that vehicle, a claim against the vehicle, maybe a probate case, maybe a divorce case, maybe somebody owes money and there’s a judgment, if they come and say, “No, this vehicle has a claim against it,” the bonding company will pay off that claim, but then they’ll come after you for the money. So there’s some liability when you get a bonded title, but you could still do it. It’s a lot easier than some of the other methods.

Court-Ordered Titles
What else can you do? Well, that’s what this video is about. We’re already four minutes in, I’m not getting to the punchline yet. The punchline is, in every state, you can do what’s called a court order title. And you’ll see on the screen here, this is a fact sheet. This one happens to be from Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, they don’t call their title division Department of Motor Vehicles. They call it Department of Transportation. It’s called PennDOT, right? And they have a process for it. Here is Indiana court order title application checklist. Here’s Florida actions for obtaining alternate proof of motor vehicle ownership by court order. And we’re going to look at these three examples. Your state and counties have procedures for this, and we’ll talk about how they’re different in different places, and what are the similarities, and what’s going on behind the scenes.

The Court Order Title Loophole
A court-ordered title is basically a loophole. It’s the new loophole. Now that Vermont is not a loophole, the loophole is instead of begging the DMV to give you a title, you go over their head. The DMV can only do certain things. They can’t give titles to people that don’t have proper paperwork. Even if they wanted to, they can’t do it. They can’t break their own rules. They can’t take your word for it that you’re supposed to have a title, you’re supposed to be the owner. They have to go by procedures. So, if they’re giving you the runaround or the DMV has given you a lot of bureaucracy, then what you do is you do a court order title. You go over their head. The court is their boss. And you go to the court and you tell your story. See, here’s the difference: the DMV cannot listen to your story.

Court Authority and Your Story
You can tell them, “Well, I bought this car on Craigslist. I got a bill of sale, and the guy gave me his license, and I got the text message.” They can’t listen to that. They have no ability to do anything just based on your story. It’s all hot air to them. The court can listen to your story. So, if you go to the court and you file a petition, and you tell the court, “My petition is I want you to say I’m the owner,” and you also file an affidavit, “Here’s my story. I bought the car on Craigslist. I got a bill of sale. The guy didn’t answer my text message. Here’s my proof of payment,” whatever you have, the court looks at it and says, “Your story makes sense.” The court can do that. The DMV cannot do that. So, you’re going over their head. Once the court does that, they give you a court order, and you bring that to the DMV, slap it on the counter, and now the DMV has to listen to you. And it’s powerful because the DMV can’t say no. They have to say yes because their boss is the court.

Legal Disclaimer and Court Order Process
Now remember, we’re not attorneys. We’re not giving you legal advice, but here are some of the key things to understand about a court order. Here’s Florida actions for obtaining alternate proof of motor vehicle ownership. That’s the key: alternate proof. If you don’t have the old title—I think we have one here. Yeah, here’s a title, right? This is what a title looks like. You’ve seen it, right? This is an official document. It’s all scroll work. It’s all official. If you don’t have one of those from the last owner properly signed over to you with no errors, no whiteout, you’re done. Now, you can go to court. Florida law requires a purchaser of a motor vehicle to obtain a court order directing the DMV to issue a title. Think about that. The court order is directing the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a title. It directs them. They’re the boss. The court is the boss.

Importance of Court Orders
When the individual does not receive a title at the time of purchase, the court will give a direction to the DMV, and the law requires it. So, this is in the law: implementation of uniform procedures and petitions to make it easy in accordance with the authority. And it goes into the details: a person seeking a court order must complete the clerk of court. A couple of things: the complaint (also called a petition) and an affidavit. So these are two of the documents that are needed. I mean, this is Florida, but all 50 states have this. Now, it’s not at the state level either. There are actually 3,611 different counties in the country. You file this at the county, so the counties may have some different procedures, but basically, you file the affidavit of facts, telling how you got the vehicle, what your story is. This is where you can vent. You can tell your story. People will listen to you. DMV doesn’t listen to you. You file a petition or sometimes called a complaint. This is what I want: declaratory relief. Declaratory comes from the word declare. I want the court to declare the relief. The relief you’re looking for—how relieved would you feel if you got a title? That’s what you’re asking for: relief. And the relief is a vehicle title transfer.

Understanding Legal Terms
You’re complaining about the DMV to the court for them to declare, to give you relief for a vehicle title transfer. It’s all right there. It sounds like a lot of fancy legal talk, but it’s really not. It’s really exactly what you want. In addition, in some states, you also are going to need what’s called a declaration of non-interest. What that means is you have to say in your own words and sign it that you’re not aware of anybody else that’s claiming the vehicle, right? It’s not disputed because the court is going to make this real easy if there’s no dispute. If you just say, “Look, this is my vehicle. I got a bill of sale. I paid for it. Nobody’s contesting it. Nobody’s arguing with me about it.” It’s going to be easy. But if somebody’s arguing with you about the vehicle, then see, then the court’s going to be—it’s going to be more difficult. This is for people who have no complaint against them or no claim against the vehicle. So you may have to do a third document called a declaration of no interest, meaning that you’re not aware of anybody else that has an interest in the vehicle.

State-Specific Procedures
And here’s Pennsylvania fact sheet: transfer of ownership by court order. That’s what you want, right? It outlines procedures that must be followed when applying for a title involving the involuntary transfer of a vehicle ownership. This is when the last owner isn’t volunteering to sign the back of the title. Here’s your title. If the owner on the back signs it, that’s a voluntary transfer. If the last owner is not volunteering because maybe you don’t know who it is, maybe they won’t sign it, maybe they’re deceased, that’s an involuntary transfer. That’s different than a contested transfer. If they’re contesting it or disputing it, different story. This is involuntary. This procedure involves obtaining a court order and should only be used in circumstances where it’s impossible to transfer by a title. So if you don’t have a title, it’s impossible to transfer.

Legal Advice and Procedures
Now, you can do this. Remember, you can’t go into PennDOT or the court to ask questions because they cannot offer legal advice regarding the transfer, right? Because they consider that to be legal advice, and governments can’t do that. It tells you the procedures, what you have to do. You have to have a description of the vehicle, you have to find out what jurisdiction it is (that’s where you live), time and place of the court proceedings, and then once you get that, you get a certified copy of the court order declaring the owner of the vehicle, and then you just apply for a title, MV-1. That’s what most states call their title application, MV-1. And then here’s an example of the court order in Indiana. It says you must obtain a court order. Once you have obtained the court order, you may apply for a title using this paperwork. So, the court process and the DMV are two different things. First, you go to the court and get the court order. Then you go to the BMV. It’s a very common scenario. Don’t be dissuaded or discouraged or afraid of the fact that it says “court.” This is not like Law and Order, Jack McCoy, big court case, trial, jury, everything else. That’s not what it is.

Preparing Court Documents
In fact, most courts don’t want you in their courtroom. They want to do this all remotely. So, what you do is you prepare these four documents: the petition or complaint, the affidavit of facts, the declaration of non-interest, and a title application. And you file those with the court. Just prepare them all and file them. Don’t go to the court and ask them about it because most courts aren’t going to know. If you go in and say, “I want a court order title,” they’re not going to know what you’re talking about. You just have to file the documents. We also recommend filing them by mail, not in person. And we talk about that on our website. Get those four documents prepared. Now remember, one thing to keep in mind is these are not fill-in-the-blank forms, right? So you’ve seen forms like this before. This is an application for title where it says “name,” blank, “address,” blank, “VIN number,” blank. You fill in the blanks. A court order title application or petition doesn’t have a form. You just color by numbers, put in your name. You have to start with a blank sheet of paper.

Formatting Court Documents
Now, some states give you an example. Like, here’s a sample of a court order where it gives you the wordings, but it doesn’t have a form for you to fill in. The other thing is every court’s different in their requirements. Some have double space, triple space, one-inch margin. You have to start with the petitioner or the complainant. They have a format. There’s a way you can find out that format. You can go to the court and download and print out any existing court case of somebody else. Maybe somebody’s suing over a dog bite lawsuit. Find out what the case looks like in that county, and then use that format and put your own wording in it. If you need assistance for filling out these forms, you can check out our website, cartitles.com. But the purpose of this video is to tell you about how important and powerful this process is.

The New Loophole
It’s the new loophole. It’s the new loophole because it may not be quite as simple as just filling out a single page, mailing it to Vermont, getting a license plate, but in reality, when you think about it, it kind of is. Because when people used to do the Vermont loophole, you have to first fill out the Vermont paperwork, mail it to Vermont, wait two, three, four weeks, get that back, and then take that and then fill out your state paperwork and mail it to your state, wait two, three, four weeks to get a title, right? The other thing is, it usually costs a lot less because Vermont charged you sales tax, and they charge you tax on the full book value of the vehicle. If you paid a thousand dollars for a vehicle on the bill of sale, but Vermont could look it up in a book and say 8,000, they would charge you tax on 8,000 at six percent. That’s almost 500 bucks in taxes, plus the $76 registration fee for Vermont. You’re in for almost 600 bucks. Court orders don’t usually cost that much. Most courts charge 30, 50, 100 bucks, sometimes 200 bucks to file the paperwork.

Final Thoughts
It’s not really any more complicated than doing Vermont. Just people are afraid of the word “court,” and they don’t feel like they’re maybe getting over on demand as much because it’s not a loophole. But in reality, it is because it’s more powerful. Remember, the Vermont DMV has no authority over your DMV. Many people would take that Vermont registration, that license plate, go to your state and say, “Hey, I want to switch this for a title in my state,” and they would say, “This is a scam. We know this Vermont thing. You’re not fooling anybody. Don’t bring us this garbage,” and they’d kick you out. We hear this all the time from people who did Vermont. They can’t kick you out with a court order. With a court order, you’re in. They have to listen to you. So use this to your advantage. Don’t be afraid of court. Don’t think it’s a big deal. You may have to jump through a couple of hoops, but your alternative is, what, not having a title? Anything else is going to be harder, more expensive, and take longer, guaranteed. There’s no magic title where you just say to somebody, “I want a title,” and demand it, and one of these shows up in the mailbox. It doesn’t work that way. There are things you can do to get a title. It takes a little bit of work, but remember, this is the law. Florida law requires the DMV to issue a title when the person has a court order. Requires. So use it to your advantage. Check out our website to read more about it. Glad to help. If you need more assistance, you can email [email protected]. There’s also a way you can arrange a private consultation with a live certified title agent. We’d be glad to be of assistance.

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Vermont Loophole Cancelled. Now What?

The End of the Vermont Title Loophole
So the famous Vermont title loophole is over. If you’re watching this channel for the last few years, you’ve heard us talk about how this thing was going to come to an end and how many states were giving people a hard time about it. Going back 3 or 4 years shouldn’t be news to many of you. We’re going to talk about what do you do now, what is the new loophole besides Vermont after Vermont.

Vermont Registrations Explained
But before we do that, let’s talk about what’s happening with the prior Vermont registrations. Here’s how it worked, and some of you know this already. Maybe you just found out about the Vermont loophole now, maybe you’ve known about it for years and you’re trying to find out what to do otherwise. Maybe you sent in paperwork to Vermont and they sent it back. The Vermont loophole, so to speak, was a method that people would use to get a title for their vehicle when they did not have the proper documents for their own State.

Publicizing the Loophole
You can see here this was, you know, talked about on Hagerty Insurance, one of the world, one of the country’s biggest legitimate insurance companies. They talked about the Vermont loophole. In fact, they were one of the places that publicized it many years ago, and they talked about on the channel about how they use our service to do this or reference our website.

The Process
So here’s the thing: what you would do is you would apply by mail to the state of Vermont to get a registration. You’re not getting a title; you got a registration. Once you got that registration from Vermont, then you bring it to your state to exchange for a title. It gave you something, a piece of paper with your name on it, that you could bring to your state to get a title.

Issues with the Loophole
The problem with it is that’s not what your state wanted you to do. They wanted you to jump through the hoops in your state to get a title, maybe a bonded title, maybe go back to the owner to get a duplicate. Right. But people took this loophole because they thought it was the easy way out, and in some cases, there were some parts of it that were easier, but in reality, a lot of times, it was harder than just doing it the right way. You had to pay tax to Vermont, which was a huge tax bill. You had to first get the Vermont license plate and then switch it over to your state. There were also some insurance issues that came up.

State Rejections
So, starting in 2017 or 18, some states started to reject Vermont registrations if you brought them in. For a while, the state of Indiana wouldn’t let you exchange a Vermont registration for a title. Then for a while, Ohio gave you a hard time. There was a period of time in Florida where they put signs in the window of the DMV in Florida: “Don’t bring us a Vermont registration, we consider it to be fraud.” So these are the pushbacks that people got from it.

New Loophole: Court Order Title
So we recommended many years ago to look at other options. There’s a new loophole, really not new, it’s always been in existence. Some people don’t want to do it because they think it sounds hard; they think that it’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth, and that’s by going over the head of your DMV. Look, if you walk into the DMV in your state and you don’t have one of these (a legal title to a vehicle from the last owner properly signed on the back to you, no cross out, no white out, no tears) and you actually have it, if you don’t have a title, you can’t get a new title with your name on it. The DMV is not going to give you one just based on your say-so, not even with a bill of sale. Bill of sale means nothing; that’s just a receipt that somebody gave you for payment of the vehicle. It doesn’t mean that they owned it, doesn’t have any proof that they were the owner, so they don’t take bill of sale to give you a title.

Going Over the DMV’s Head
So what do you do even if they wanted to? The DMV can’t do it. You go over their head. Who is their boss? Their boss is the court. So what you do is you do a court order title. This is an example of one from Pennsylvania. This is the procedure you follow when you wish to obtain a certificate of title to a motor vehicle if you don’t have the old title. You have to prepare these forms: look, there’s Section Two, Section Three, Section Four, Section Five, Section Six, Section S. Court order. Court grants your petition. It will grant an order. Once the order is filed, you need to get a copy and then bring it to PennDOT; that’s Pennsylvania’s version. In this state, this is Oklahoma: court order to issue a title.

The Court Process
We didn’t invent this. This is actually a court process. Now, most counties in the country don’t have a specific court order title pre-made document like this one. Most counties, you have to type this up. I see all these words on the page. You have to type it from scratch and file it. Some counties have it; you put in the VIN number, you put in your name, you put in the information. Look, in support of this application, the applicant would state under oath he is the owner of this vehicle and came into possession under the following circumstances. Three lines: how’d you get the car? Bought it on Craigslist for 500, whatever. Verification: I read this application; statements are true and correct. You have to get it notarized. Court order for issuance of title.

Examples from Different States
So this is one example. We looked at the other one from Pennsylvania. Some states have examples of these. Ohio has a few counties that have examples. If your state has one or your county has one, you can use it as a template. If not, you can type this up, file it with the court. First, see you’re going over the head of the DMV. The court will do a little bit of research. They’re going to make sure your vehicle’s not stolen, make sure it has no liens, make sure it’s not a salvage or parts only or junk title. They’re going to make sure there’s no claims against it from a probate. Once that’s all checked out, they may ask you for a few more things, maybe a picture of the VIN number to prove you’re in possession of the vehicle. They may ask you to show up in the clerk’s office, raise your right hand, and swear under oath everything you said is true. Normally, they don’t require you to do a big Law and Order Jack McCoy court case. They don’t want to do all that; they want to keep it simple, and they issue this order.

Court Order vs. DMV Rejection
Here’s the application for an order. Here is the actual order: court order for issuance of title. Once you get that signed by the judge, so ordered, district court judge signs it right here, you take that to DMV and slap it on the counter, and they have to give you a title no matter what paperwork you don’t have because this trumps not having this. So this is the new loophole. It is maybe a little bit more bureaucratic; you might have to fill out a couple more forms, but here, look, this one here has three forms. Usually, you have three or four forms, and we’ll talk about what they are here in a minute.

Comparing Processes
The Vermont process, you have to fill out the Vermont application VD-19. You have to get that back; you have to sign over that registration, that’s step two, and then apply for a title in your state. Three forms, and you have to wait for Vermont to issue a registration, which may take 3 or 4 weeks. Then you have to bring it to your state to switch for a title, which may take 2 or 3 weeks. In the meantime, you’re paying fees to both states, waiting for both states. This one here, you’re just jumping to the front of the line, right? You’re going over their head at the DMV and having the judge say, “No, this person is squared away, and we’re giving him a title.” More importantly, you don’t have to worry about the DMV not accepting what you bring them. If you bring your DMV a Vermont registration in the past, they could reject it if they wanted to. If they thought you were trying to do something sketchy, they could throw you out. They can’t reject a court order. Court order is, you know, rock-paper-scissors. Court order beats DMV.

The New Loophole: Advantages
So use this technique and this process to your advantage. It’s the new loophole. Is it a little more work? Maybe a little bit. Is it a lot more powerful? A lot more powerful because there’s no rejection by the DMV. Can the court reject it? The court can reject it, but normally they’re only going to do that if there’s something wrong with your vehicle or your story. If you stole the car, if somebody else stole the car, if there’s liens on it that you haven’t cleared yet (and there’s ways to clear liens, we talk about that in other videos), or if the vehicle is not eligible for a title (is it a junk parts-only vehicle). As long as you have a legitimate vehicle, this is the way to go, and you don’t have to pay anybody to do this. You can fill out all these forms yourself. Our website has examples of how to do that. We also have a title service; if you want assistance with it, of course, we can help you, but you don’t have to pay anybody to do this. You don’t have to hire an attorney; you don’t have to hire a lawyer. You can do these yourself. They give you the checklist of what to do.

Using Templates and Getting Help
Even in the states where they don’t give you that, you can use templates that we provide on our website to be able to figure it out. Or if you want help, we can do that too. Don’t fear the Vermont loophole being over. It’s not the end of the world. You can still get a title. These ways are better.

Potential Revocations of Vermont Registrations
Here’s the other kicker: there’s word out there from some insiders at DMVs that some states are going to go back over the last 12 months and find people who submitted a Vermont registration in order to get a title in their state and revoke those titles. We’re already hearing this is going to happen. So be glad that you didn’t do the Vermont process because there’s some people that are going to have a rude awakening when they get their letter in the mail from their state DMV, let’s say Nevada DMV, saying, “Hey, remember that Vermont registration you brought us? We’re revoking your title. We’re undoing it.” So now you have to go through another process.

Conclusion
So be glad you didn’t do it, especially in the last few years. People still wanted to do it even when they’re offered the options. You know, people have the freedom of choice; they can do whatever they want, but now you can not have to worry about that option, which may not be the best overall. You can just jump right to the best way to do it: court order. How would you like to have the court on your side for a change? How would you like to have the judge be your partner for a change instead of being against you? The court is on your side against the DMV with a court order title. If you want more information, you can check out our website cartitles.com. There’s an email helpdesk at cartitles for our help desk. There’s also an option where you can arrange for a private consultation with a certified title agent to go over your specific case to see how it will work out for you.

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