Car Title Certificate of Destruction

What is a Car Title Certificate of Destruction?
So what is a car title certificate of destruction? This is a document that’s issued by an insurer with the designation that it’s designated for destruction, meaning that this car is not legal for use on the road ever again. It’s not a salvage title, it’s not a junk title, it’s not a repair title, it’s a destruction title, meaning that the insurer is saying this car needs to be destroyed. They do this because of liability.

Auction and Resale Issues
Now, many of these cars come from Copart or IAA auctions or some of the other insurance options that exist. In many cases, they sell for very, very cheap. Buyers will look at it and say, “I can fix this car up and sell it and make a lot of money on it.” However, without the legal title, you can’t put it on the road. Sometimes these become like musical chairs, right? The guy buys it from the auction, he finds out he can’t do anything with it, and then sells it to somebody else without a title and doesn’t disclose that it has a CD or certificate of destruction.

Disclosing the Certificate of Destruction
If you come across one of these cars, the first thing to do is find out where you disclose this information. If you bought it from the auction, you need to find out if it was disclosed to you. If it wasn’t, you can return it to the auction. If you bought it from a dealer, they have to disclose it to you. If not, you can return it. Look for that method first because, in most cases, no matter how much you paid for it, how cheap it is, it’s never going to be worth it to try to do something with that car because, without a title, you can’t even bring it to the junkyard.

Selling Parts and Export Restrictions
Now, if you can sell the parts off it to get your money back, maybe that’s the way to go. But remember, when you’ve sold all the parts off it and still have a frame and a chassis and the bare bones left, you have to get rid of that, and sometimes that costs money more than what you might have gotten from the parts. In addition, in many cases, it’s blocked for export. You can’t even export these cars because most countries don’t allow them to be imported, and the customs of even the U.S. sometimes doesn’t allow them to be put on the ship to go outside the country.

Curbstoning and Legal Actions
If you’ve purchased it from what’s called a curbstoner, meaning somebody who’s not a dealer just buys and sells cars, you can get a refund by looking at whether or not they have a dealer’s license. If somebody sells cars for a living, it doesn’t matter how many they sell. If they sell two or three or five and they’re doing this for a living, they have to have a license. If they don’t have a license and they’re operating in the capacity of a dealer without a license, you can turn them in. Most DMVs and state police in the states want to know about this, so rather than have that happen, maybe that person who sold to you might want to give your money back and then maybe try to do something else with that car.

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