Get A Charge Off Title Lien Released

So if you have a vehicle that has a lien recorded against the title with the DMV, you cannot do a title transfer until you get that lien released from the title record. So how do you do that? What if it’s a charge-off? What if it’s a write-off? That’s going to be one of the most common scenarios for a vehicle lien to be recorded in an official title record. If that lien or underlying payment has not been paid for a long period of time, the lender has probably placed it into non-performance or delinquency status, and it becomes a charge-off or write-off.

Lender’s Perspective on Charge-Offs
What that means is the lender does not consider it to be an asset on their balance sheet any longer. It means that the loan can no longer be counted on as a securitized instrument for the lien holder. So what happens is they do a charge-off; they do a write-off, but they don’t go out of their way to remove the lien from the title record. And the reason why they don’t is because it costs them money to actually do a lien release. So why bother doing it if it’s not going to benefit them?

Requesting a Lien Release
So how do you get that lien removed? What you want to do is you want to request it from the lien holder. However, it’s very important how you go about doing this, and we’ll talk about the method and also talk about a backup if, for some reason, you request it and they don’t do it, or they drag their feet, or they give you a runaround. What can you do to get a lien release without relying on the lien holder, without relying on the lender?

Step-by-Step Process
Step one is to contact the lender in a very specific way. You want to do it in writing; you don’t want to do it by phone, email, text message, Facebook, or any electronic means because lien holders do not have a specific lien release department. There’s not people sitting around waiting to sign a lien release. Everybody at the bank, financial institution, dealership, wherever the lien is held, has some other job they’re doing every day, and for them to drop everything and do a lien release is not going to be beneficial to them.

Mailing the Lien Release Document
So what do they do? You call them up, and you say, “I need a lien release,” and they tell you that they’re not going to do it, or they can’t do it, or they can’t talk to you because you’re not the borrower, or they tell you they will do it, but then they never follow through. So what you do is you take the actual lien release document. You can see one here on the screen. This is a lien release; this happens to be from the state of Nevada. Every state has a specific official government lien release form. Nevada is one of the simpler ones. You get this form, and you fill it in 100%. The Vehicle Identification Number, year, make, model—you see all the spaces on the screen—registered owner, printed name of lien holder, address, phone number of the lien holder, and you print it and mail it to the lien holder.

Importance of Physical Mailing
Don’t try to fax it, email it, any other way. If you do that, it won’t work. Whether it’s a charge-off, write-off, or even if it’s paid off, you don’t want to do it electronically. Here’s why: that lien holder is going to get that email, and now they have to print it, they have to find an envelope, they have to do everything that is work in their daily routine. If you already have it printed with a little arrow sticker where to sign and put a return envelope in that mailing so all they have to do is sign it and send it back to you, you don’t want them dragging down to the mailroom to find a stamp, to get an envelope—you don’t want to give any excuse to throw it in the trash.

Including a Letter of Non-Interest
In addition to this lien release document, also include what’s called a letter of non-interest. Sometimes, if that lien holder employee that pulls it up—because that’s who’s going to get it, just an administrative employee—they look it up and they say, “It’s a charge-off.” Well, they might not know that that means lien release, but what they do know is if you have a letter of non-interest that means, “I have no longer any interest in this vehicle,” signed lien holder. They can sign that because a charge-off means they don’t have an interest in the vehicle. So include a backup with your mailing that says “letter of non-interest.” Have that form also prepared, printed, filled in. Don’t leave anything for work for them to do when you send it. Again, put a return envelope with your name already printed on the front, a stamp on it, so all they have to do is sign it, put it in, and mail it to you.

Multiple Submission Locations
The only time that lien holders we see do not send you a lien release is if it’s an active loan on a later model vehicle with a lot of money owed. If you have, you know, right now it’s October of 2023, if you have a 2022 vehicle that’s owed $50,000 on it, you’re probably not going to get a lien release. As long as the vehicle is older, even if it has a lot of money on it, if the lien is delinquent, charge-off, write-off, many times the lien holder just signs it. In addition, the way we do it is we send it to multiple locations for that lien holder because all you need is one of them. If you just send it to one place, that person might throw it in the trash. If you send it to four or five places—we send it to up to five—all it takes is one of them, some secretary, clerk, administrative person signs it, mails it back to you. It increases the probability you’re going to get that lien release.

Consequences of Not Obtaining Lien Release
Because if you don’t get that lien release, you’re in big trouble because you have to either forget about the car or you have to go to plan B. What is Plan B? Well, here’s Plan B. Plan B is you have to do a court order title, and here’s an example. This happens to be from a county in Ohio. It’s a court order certificate of title. You have to fill out an affidavit, a journal entry, a docket request, an affidavit of facts, a petition, also be typed up and submitted to the court.

Court Order Process
Now, if there’s a lien on it, they’re going to ask you, “Did you try to contact the lien holder?” So you can show you already did this. You don’t want to start with the court order title if there’s a lien on it. If you know there’s a lien, at least go out of your way to try to have documentation, not that you called or emailed, but you actually mailed something to the lien holder. If you can have proof of that, now the court is going to be on your side because they say, “Well, the bank doesn’t want anything to do with it. They didn’t, you know, send any reply back.” So the court will then step in. Use this as a backup method. It’s very powerful because if you don’t get the lien release from the lien holder, the court can override that with the DMV. Use these as methods you can use to get that lien off the title record.

DMV Regulations
The DMV can’t do it without having one of these two forms: either the lien release from the bank or the court order from the court. Without one of those two things, the hands are tied of the DMV. They’re not allowed to remove a lien just based on some receipt you show you paid for it or your verbal statement. They can’t do that. They have to go by what the law says. It seems like they’re giving you the runaround, but in reality, they are following their own rules.

Timing and Court Order Submission
So try to get the lien release. Maybe wait, you know, 7 to 10 days. If you don’t get it back, then start your court order process. And the court order process is not that bad. It’s some documents you have to fill out. The one thing about court is they’re very picky about the documents, making sure everything’s i’s are dotted, t’s are crossed, everything’s done the right way. If anything is off, they’ll just reject it. So you want to make sure it’s done right. And we also recommend don’t bring it to the court directly, mail it to the court. If you bring it directly, the clerk might look at this and say, “Well, you know, we don’t know what to do with this.” Sometimes clerks don’t know exactly what’s going on behind the scenes, and if you bring it in, they could turn you away. If you mail it, there’s nobody there for them to argue with, right? They just file it with the court and let the judge or the magistrate deal with it.

Court as an Ally
If you’re there, they can kind of try to deflect things. You know, most courts are overloaded, so they are told unofficially to not do as many cases as possible. Nothing wrong with the courts, not doing anything wrong, they’re just trying to keep junk cases from showing up. But court-ordered title cases are actually good for the court because they’re administrative. It’s not like a big Law and Order Jack McCoy kind of thing where you have to go in and do a big case. It’s all administrative. It’s all done with paperwork. So those cases the courts are comfortable with, but the clerk may not know that. So don’t leave it to chance by walking in the door and saying, “Here’s what I got.” Remember, the court can also not help you with any of the paperwork.

Legal Advice Limitation
How do we know that? Well, they tell you. Look right here. They say the court’s office is not permitted to give legal advice, distribute forms, or assist in the completion of any form submitted to the court. So they tell you right there, and that’s pretty much across the board. Every state has that. They can’t assist in the completions of the documents. You have to have them all done when you walk in the door. You can’t come in empty-handed.

Final Advice
So try your lien release, or if it’s a clear title, try your prior owner contact. If those fail, keep your documentation that you tried, and then let the court be on your side. This is one example where the court is your friend. They’re not against you. They’re not trying to harm you. They’re not trying to jam you up. The court is trying to help you deal with the bureaucracy of the DMV. And if you can get them on your side, there’s no more powerful ally in the world than the court, and you want to have that tool in your toolbox. Because the DMV, you know, as much as they want to help, it’s a bureaucracy. It’s a punchline of jokes on sitcoms, and you don’t want to be subject to that if you don’t have to.

Additional Resources
You also have the option in some states of doing a bonded title. That’s a subject for other videos. Make sure you subscribe to our channel. Go through our whole library. We have an extensive video library with videos about many, many subjects of getting a title, instructions for some of these processes, and if you want more information, you can check out our website cartitles.com or book a consultation with a certified title agent.

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Is Buying/Selling A Car With No Title Allowed Or Legal?

Is buying or selling a vehicle without a title a good idea? In this episode of car titles, we’re going to talk about how vehicle titles are more important than actually taking possession of the vehicle. We get hundreds of calls a day, sometimes over a thousand calls a day, and many of the time that people call in it’s because they’re considering purchasing a vehicle without a title and they want to know how they can get a title if they buy it.

Legal Advice: Never Buy Without a Title
In our sales department, we always have the advice to never buy a vehicle without a title. We never recommend doing it. Title is a legal government document you see like this and it’s something where if you buy a vehicle and even if you get a bill of sale even if you get the keys even if you get possession if you don’t get that certified title document you have nothing you’ve purchased nothing. The title document is the most important thing.

Legal Ramifications
So, can you buy a car without a title? Well, let’s talk about what happens if you do. In many states, it’s actually against the law to buy or sell a car without a title. Here’s the statutes from Texas: “The owner of a motor vehicle that is required to be titled must obtain the title before selling or disposing of the vehicle. That’s a crime if you don’t.” In Oregon, violating title requirements is also a crime.

Risk and Reality
Now, that doesn’t mean the SWAT team is going to come in and swoop down and pick you up. People buy and sell cars without titles all the time. Why do they have these laws? Well, it’s to protect you from the risks involved. If you purchase a vehicle without a title, in most cases, you could probably get a title 70-80% of the time. It’ll all work out. But 20 or 30% of the time, you’ll never get a title ever. And you won’t know that until you actually try to get a title.

Unreliable Checks
There’s no amount of searching VIN checks, car checks, background checks on a vehicle you could ever do to find out 100% if you will get a title. Forget about Carfax, VIN search, VinAudit, none of those places are going to tell you everything you need to know about getting a title. Even if it looks like it’s a clean vehicle, clean title, it doesn’t mean necessarily you get to be the owner of it, right?

Hidden Issues
Sometimes vehicles are not eligible for you to get a title because of something in the background. Maybe it’s a salvage title, maybe it’s a parts-only title, maybe it’s reported stolen. Some of that you can find out on Vin or Carfax, but if there’s a lien on the vehicle, you will never find that out by Carfax.

Lien Issues
It might say no lien found, but if you read the small print, they don’t search for liens everywhere. In fact, Carfax has about 10% of all liens in their system. So, you’re not going to find it. You can’t get that information from the DMV either because they’re not allowed to give it out.

Ownership Disputes
If there’s a lien on the vehicle, all title transfers are blocked. You cannot transfer title with a lien on the vehicle, even if it’s paid off, until the lien holder clears it. If there are any ownership disputes on the title, if the last owner maybe doesn’t agree or doesn’t want to cooperate with you to do a transfer, you’re going to have a problem.

Financial Risk
So, unless you’re willing to take the money that you’re looking to spend on that vehicle and completely make it speculative, put it at risk, don’t buy a car without a title. End of story.

Post-Purchase Solutions
Now, if you have already purchased a vehicle without a title, now you have to at least try something. It doesn’t hurt to try. You can try a bonded title, court order title, prior owner contact. There are many methods you could try to get a title. Our website has them all listed below.

Seller’s Responsibility
But if you’re considering purchasing a vehicle without a title, ask the seller, “Why don’t you have a legal title to give me like you’re supposed to under the law?” If they can’t give you a straight answer, then just walk away. It’s a scam. Even if they have an answer that sounds good.

Seller Reliability
Look, I can’t tell you how many times our sales staff comes to us and says, “Look, I talked to this person, the sellers seem legitimate, they seem like honest people, they were a middle-class couple, everything seemed legit, but I can’t get a title.”

Seller’s Post-Sale Reluctance
Even if the sellers have good faith when they’re talking to you about buying the vehicle, it doesn’t mean later they’re going to change their mind. Once they have the money in their hand, they’re not going to do anything to help you.

Common Problems
The number of times where something comes up that is more problematic than that is greater than you think. Many times there’s a lien on the vehicle, many times there’s a title pawn on the vehicle, many times it was sold at an auction like Copart or IAA and it has a salvage or parts-only title.

Salvage Title Challenges
Even a salvage title requires a very thorough detailed inspection. Sometimes the inspection has to go to the state where the last title was from. So, if you buy a car from out of state and it’s salvage, you would have to bring it back to that state, have it inspected, and have it approved.

DMV Hurdles
I can tell you this: the states don’t want salvage vehicles back on the road. The DMVs look for any reason they can to fail a salvage inspection because their official position is salvage vehicles don’t belong on the road. They’re for parts.

Financial Gambling
Technically, if you jump through a bunch of hoops, you can get it back on the road, and it happens 50% of the time. It’ll work. But again, do you want to take your money and give it a 50/50 chance of being thrown away?

Recovery Options
Would you go into the casino and bet $7,000 on blackjack or the roulette wheel? Because that’s what you’re doing by buying a car without a title.

Steps to Recovery
If you receive incorrect or incomplete information or lost it, remember that can happen too. You buy a card and lose it, you may have the option of using a bonded title. Here are the steps: Purchase a bond, apply for a bond.

Final Advice
Remember, purchasing a vehicle without a title is a risk. Make that decision wisely. If you decide to go through with it or if you’ve already purchased a vehicle and now you’re stuck and have to do something, then you can look at these methods: bonded title, court order title, prior contact. There are other things you can do.

Regretful Buyers
Most of the people who call us that already bought a vehicle without a title wish that they could go back and not do it because it’s not worth the hassle. It’s going to take your time, even if you do it all yourself for free.

Legal Framework
You know, you don’t have to pay anybody to get you a title if it’s your vehicle. You can do it yourself. But it may take you 10-15 hours of time to research, get documents back and forth, then you have to get the runaround from DMV.

Complexities
Then you have to wait for them and hope, cross your fingers that nothing comes up that prevents that title from being issued. Sometimes there’s another title that’s already been issued that blocks your title, sometimes there’s a prior owner claim, sometimes it’s a deceased owner where that vehicle has to go into probate.

State Laws
There’s a lot of things that can come up. We could never even get into them all in a video. But that’s why the states have these laws that it’s illegal to buy and sell a vehicle without a title. They just want to keep it simple.

Research
Investigate your state. You can do research. Every state has their statutes online. Transportation code, vehicle title and registration code. This one is for Oregon, but every state has these documents.

Conclusion
But even if it is legal, you probably don’t want to do it anyways because you could be out of luck and all your money’s gone. And now you have to worry about trying to resell it to somebody else without a title and cross your fingers and hope that you find a buyer or to sell it for parts.

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Does A Court Order Title Bypass the DMV Runaround?

What is a Court Order Title?
So what is a court order title and how does it help you get a title certificate for a vehicle?

The Court Order Title Process
A court order title process is a method where if you don’t have the right paperwork that your DMV or your title agency in your state is willing to accept, you go over their head.

Going to Court
You go over their authority to go to the court system in your county where you reside.

Proving Ownership
You basically tell the court that you are the legal owner. You have documentation, you have a bill of sale, receipts, and you want them to sign an order directing the DMV commissioner to give you a title that gives you power over the DMV.

Verification by the Court
Now the Court’s going to verify your story, whatever story you have about how you bought the vehicle.

Preparing Your Documentation
You’re going to have to put that in writing. It’s an Affidavit of facts, a declaration of non-interest, and a petition.

Filing with the Court
You prepare those three forms, filing with the court.

Conditions for Judgment
If everything checks out in the vehicle – it’s not stolen, no liens, no salvage, no back taxes – the court will generally give you a judgment of ownership based on their discretion.

Obtaining the Title
Once you get that Judgment of ownership, you bring it to the DMV, slap it on the counter, and they give you a title.

State-Specific Rules
Every state has different rules about that. Sometimes you have to get rejected first by the DMV before you go to the court.

Additional Court Requirements
Sometimes the court will do a background check on the vehicle. Sometimes they’ll want you to send out letters to the last owner.

Initial Steps
You will not know what you need to do until you file with the court, so the first step is to file with the court.

Preparation for Court
Now, you can’t just walk into the court and say I want to do a court order title. They’re not going to know what you’re talking about.

Importance of Preparation
You have to walk in with your petition, your affidavit, your letter of non-interest already prepared and file them with the court and let the magistrate take action on it.

Court Clerk’s Role
The court clerk can’t advise you. They’re not going to know what specifically a court order title is.

Being Ready
You have to come in already prepared. You can’t come in empty-handed because the court’s not allowed to give you assistance. They can’t give you legal advice.

Filing by Mail
So make sure you’re prepared when you walk into that courtroom. In fact, we don’t recommend walking into the court. We recommend filing it by mail because that way the clerk won’t make any misunderstandings about what you’re trying to do and reject it before it even gets to the magistrate.

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Vermont Title Loophole Banned: Fallout & Good News

Consequences of Canceling the Vermont Title Loophole
Well, it’s been about 6 months since the famous Vermont title loophole has been cancelled and banned by the state of Vermont and the other states so what have been the consequences and the Fallout from all this with vehicle titles look thousands of people every day purchase Vehicles without titles and they need a title solution for many years the Vermont loophole has been a go-to fix for that problem but at the same time it’s also been under Fire.

Awareness of Alternatives: Court Ordered Titles
If you’ve been watching our Channel for the last few years you’ve seen us talk about the fact that this thing was going to go away we knew it even 5 years ago now that it’s gone what do you do what we have seen is the most powerful title loophole as an alternative to the Vermont process is now becoming much more publicized for example the court ordered title process which is eligible in all 50 states used to be that you could only find it on two counties website in the whole country and there are 3,611 counties in the country up until this year only two of them had something on their website about a court order title in fact if you walked into most County cour houses and talked to the clerk and said hey I want to do a court ordered car title they would not know what you’re talking about right.

Increasing Availability of Court Ordered Titles
We’ve been doing court order titles for 7 eight years but most count didn’t know about it and it’s fair because most counties also don’t know about a dog bite lawsuit right it’s not a a name that they give to a process it’s a type of case that they do in their court but here’s the thing now that the Vermont loophole is cancelled and banned what you’re finding is more and more courts and every day we’re finding more here is one from Le County Pennsylvania here is one from uh IND in Minnesota right instruct instruction guide for a court order title here is one from Indiana court order title application um here is one from also from Pennsylvania inv voluntary transfer of a vehicle in that particular County so here’s the thing this is the way that the government wants you to get a title now just saying that means a lot of people aren’t going to want to do it that way most people want to do it their own way.

Advantages of Court Ordered Titles
But even when the Vermont process was available this court order Ty actually had some advantages first of all the state of Vermont charged you sales tax on the full book value of the vehicle didn’t matter what you paid for it second of all you had to wait for the Vermont to process of registration get a license plate then take that to your state to exchange for a title A lot of times people didn’t do step two because they figured well I already got a license plate and I’ll drive around on it but that’s going to come back to haunt you because when you do go to switch it over to your state they’re going to see that you did drive around on it cuz a look at the date and they’ll penalize you the court order title bypasses all that you just go to the court you get a judgment of ownership you bring that to your DMV or dot whatever organization in your state gives titles smack it on the counter and they give you a title so the Fallout from this is because of the fact that now um Vermont is not available more and more counties are more familiar so they’re streamlining the process it’s making an easier process so on our website you’ll see instructions for how to do a core order title of course we have Title Service if you want some assistance with it but it’s the way to go it’s even better than a bonded title because on a bonded title you have to purchase a shity bond from a Bonding Agency that’s going to be 1.5 times the value of the vehicle in Most states then you have to submit it to the DMV for them to approve it at the court level once you get that petition you bring it to the DMV and they accept it you want to make sure though that you get all your paperwork right because if you see even on this fact sheet from Pennsylvania it says pendot which is their version of DMV will not offer legal advice regarding a court order title so they can’t help you the DMV in some respects can help you with paperwork the court cannot help you because that’s considered legal advice so make sure you have all your ducks in a row all your paperwork right you know most of the counties have a a big time um checklist you know this one is I don’t know 11 pages long with all their instructions and you could walk through it and do it all yourself right all the different steps but if you want help you can have that made available to you.

Conclusion: Benefits of Court Ordered Titles
The good news from the Vermont loophole for title being shut down is that now everybody is doing the court order title which is much more powerful it’s a clean title unlike a bonded title you don’t have the word bonded stamped on your title you’re not jumping around all different states to get titles from this state and then switching it to another state worrying about insurance you’re doing it the way that is the most powerful you’re going over the head of the DMV so after 6 months we’re seeing that just like all things it works out in the long run in the best for consumers and people getting titles for their vehicles.

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What Happens If You Buy A Car With No Title?

Title and Vehicle Ownership:
So how does it work if you’re buying a car and not getting a title from the seller? You know, a title is a legal government document issued only by government agency. You’ve seen them before; it’s a certificate that looks like this and that proves that you are the owner of the vehicle that the last title owner sold it to you; they transferred it to you.

Considerations Before Purchase:
If you don’t have that and the seller doesn’t have one to give you, you need to think very carefully about that purchase. Because there’s a chance that you could buy that car and never get a title. You need to first ask the seller why they do not have a legal title document to give you when you give them the money.

Risks and Legal Ownership:
If they’re the legal owner and they just lost it, they can get a duplicate real simple. If they’re not the legal owner, now you’re buying a car from somebody who’s not legally the owner; that could put you at risk. We always recommend that before you buy a car without a title, that you really think twice about: are you willing to put that money at risk?

Potential Issues with Title Acquisition:
Most of the time, it’ll work out and you can get a bill of sale and get a title, but 20-30% of the time, you may never get a title for that vehicle. It could turn out that it has a lien on it, has back taxes, it’s a salvage, it’s parts only, or it could just turn out that the process you would need to do to get a title without having a valid certificate is too hard or too costly or takes too long and you just don’t want to do it.

Additional Claims and Considerations:
There may also be other claims against the vehicle like a probate case or maybe a UCC against the vehicle that could also block the title transfer. So just because you’re getting a bill of sale doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to get a title.

Government Authority on Titles:
Most of the time it does, but the government is the ultimate decider of titles. A title is a legal government document issued only by a government agency. You can’t buy one from a company; you can’t download one from the internet. It only happens after the government decides that you are legally entitled to be the owner of that vehicle.

Challenges Without a Title:
And if you don’t have the title certificate that proves that, they’re going to make you jump through a lot of hoops. Now, there’s ways to make it easier; our website will give you instructions on how you can make that process easier, and we also have a title server so we could do that as well. But we never recommend buying a vehicle without a title unless you’re willing to take the risk with the money you’re paying for that car.

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