How to get a Court Order to make the DMV give you a Title for your Car

Court-Ordered Title Process Gaining Popularity
More and more states are advising their department of motor vehicles offices to go directly to a court-ordered title process when there’s some type of complication on the title. Many states for years did not have knowledge at the DMV level that you could get a court-ordered title when you didn’t have the right paperwork for the DMV. We’re seeing more local DMV branches directing their customers and their clients to go right to the court process. In fact, some courts even now have this as part of their paperwork. Here’s an example from a Florida county.

Example from a Florida County
A county in Florida says in their court’s instructions for vehicle ownership application: “It is sometimes possible to obtain an order to assist you in obtaining a title for a vehicle you own, but which you did not receive a title for at the time of purchase.” Does that sound like you? That’s 99% of the people who have title problems. Either they didn’t get a title when they bought it, or they did get a title and they lost it. The court may issue an order directing the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

What Is a Court-Ordered Title?
That’s what the DMV is called in Florida, to issue a certificate of title for your vehicle. This is exactly what a court-ordered title is. It’s a court order that tells the DMV, “You must issue this person a title.” And many times people think, “I don’t want to deal with the court or go to court.” It’s not a big Law and Order Jack McCoy court case. It’s all administrative. It gives you all the series of steps you have to go through to do the process. In this case, there’s a bunch of different steps.

Follow the Instructions
You have to go through, but it’s all paperwork. It’s all documentation. And if you follow the instructions carefully, you can have the court become your friend, your ally in dealing with the DMV. Remember, the DMV or whatever it’s called in your state. Some states call it Department of Transportation. In Illinois, it’s Secretary of State. In Pennsylvania, it’s called PennDOT. Every state has an agency that issues titles. They have certain rules they have to follow. They cannot give you a title.

Why Courts Can Override the DMV
No matter how much they want to, no matter how much they like you, no matter how much you think you have the right paperwork, unless you have the prior title signed over to you, they’re not allowed to give you a title. However, their get-out-of-jail-free card is the court. The court can override the DMV by looking at your bill of sale, looking at your cancelled check, looking at letters you have, or something proving that you bought the vehicle, and they can say, “Okay, this person has the right stuff.”

They sign a document, you bring it to the DMV, you slap it on the counter, and they have to give you a title. So, a court-ordered title is actually preferred by the DMV when you have title problems because it gives them an out. They don’t have to fight with you about what you have or don’t have. The courts like to do it because they like to help you. In fact, this memorandum you’re looking at on the screen came from official court documents.

Challenges in Form Preparation
The problem is – I shouldn’t say the problem, but the hard part is – in order to prepare the forms for the court, it’s not like a blank fill-in-the-blank type document you’ve seen before. It’s not like name , address . You have to create these sheets of paper from scratch and figure out a way to put the wording on it. Our website will give you some more information on doing that. Every county’s a little bit different, and sometimes you’ll still have to navigate the court. One very important thing to keep in mind is: don’t go into the court in person and start asking them how to do it. They can’t tell you. Sometimes they’ll tell you, “We don’t know how to do it,” or they might even tell you, “We don’t do it.” They may not know.

Mailing the Paperwork
Even if you have all the paperwork put together, ready to go, don’t bring it into court in person. Always do it by mail because you want to have it filed in their system without having to talk to somebody that maybe has the wrong information. So, in our experience, if you send it by mail, you’ll have way better success than if you bring it in person. I know it’s tempting. You want to bring it in and talk to somebody and try to control it, but a lot of times that’ll be your undoing and they won’t accept your paperwork. But if you mail it, you’ll be in better shape.

Why Courts Are Helpful
So, the court-ordered title process is – you know, it’s been used for decades. We’ve been doing it for decades, but more and more courts are actually having forms like you see on the screen. More and more DMV locations are telling their clients, their customers to use this instead of trying to go with the DMV because their hands are tied. They can only do so much. So, use it to your advantage.

The Power of the Court
Go over the head of the DMV. Go to the authority that can tell the DMV what to do. Look what it says right here: The court may issue an order directing the department to issue you a title. That’s what you want. You want somebody to direct the DMV to give you a title. Think about how much of a runaround you’ve gotten from the DMV. Think about how frustrating it’s been. How would it be to have somebody with power to be on your side to tell the DMV, “No ifs, ands, or buts, give this person a title”? That’s what the court can do for you.

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Charging Vehicle Storage Fees For A Title

Charging Storage Fees To Get A Title
So how do you—and can you even—charge storage fees for a vehicle in order to get a title? Many times we have clients that come to us and say, “Look, this car has been sitting on my property for 5 years. I’m going to charge $10 a day, so the owner has to give me $50,000, otherwise I’m going to own the car. That’s my rate for storage.” And that sounds like a great idea, but the law typically says otherwise. Now, the good news is there are ways to get a title for a vehicle that’s been sitting on a property that you own.

Storage Fees May Waive Your Rights
If a vehicle has been sitting on your property for a long time, charging storage fees is not the way to do it. If you do it the wrong way, you might actually waive your rights to that vehicle. How does that work? Well, here is a section from the statutes of the state of Illinois about storage fees. And the reason we selected Illinois is because it’s the same as most states, because most states go by the federal UCC, or Uniform Commercial Code, which talks about storage fees and storage liens. So the law says section 770 of the Illinois code states:

Written Notice Requirement
Any person, firm, or private corporation seeking to impose fees in connection with the furnishing of storage for a vehicle in the person’s possession must provide written notice by certified mail prior to the assessment and accrual of fees. What does that mean? That means before you can even start the clock on charging storage fees, you have to give the owner of the vehicle or lien holder notice that you’re going to start charging them storage. You have to give them an opportunity to inspect the vehicle.

Vehicle Access Requirement
The vehicle must be accessible where the vehicle is stored within two days of the request. So if you send out that notice to an owner and lien holder and you tell them you’re going to charge them $10 a day, you have to give them access within two days to be able to inspect the vehicle and take possession of it. What happens if you don’t do that? If you fail to comply with this notification of storage fees, first of all, storage fees shall not be assessed, and the owner or lien holder shall be entitled to injunctive relief for the possession of the vehicle without payment of storage fees.

Legal Consequences Of Non-Compliance
What does that mean? Basically, if you don’t send them notice before you start charging fees right away, you can’t charge fees and they can get the car back. That’s the short answer.

Only For Licensed Facilities
Maybe somebody tells you, “Hey, just start charging storage fees.” It doesn’t work. It’s not how it works. The only time it works is if you are a licensed automotive facility—storage, auto body, repair, towing—and you have a signed contract with the vehicle owner that authorizes you to charge storage, or if you towed it under a legal tow (like the police told you to tow the vehicle), then maybe you can do something. There are also other requirements in this law that can create liability for you. But if you’re a private citizen, even with a self-storage facility that stores people’s personal goods, you can’t generally charge made-up storage fees and just rack up the clock on that. You have to go through a process.

Storage Fee Method Not For Private Citizens
So if the thing you’re trying to do is get a title for a vehicle, that’s fine—you can do that. Don’t try to do it using storage fees. You might think that’s an easy way to go and clever, and “I thought of this great thing.” It’s not going to work. And it’s actually harder, takes longer, and it’s going to result in you losing the vehicle rather than if you do something else to get a vehicle title.

Use Legal Methods To Get A Title
Like a bonded title, magistrate title, VT transfer, prior owner contact—the website will give you the actual valid and successful ways to get a title rather than storage fees. And sometimes people think, “I’m going to use storage fees because I want to try to stick it to the owner” or do something clever, but it’s really not a title method. It’s a method that can be used in last resort scenarios where nothing else has worked, but you first have to try the other things.

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Can You File An Abandoned Vehicle Title?

The Myth of the Abandoned Vehicle
Today we’re going to talk about one of the most common subjects that comes up in our operations department, where people call in with questions about abandoned vehicles. Many times they use the phrase “abandoned vehicle” because they want to get a title for a vehicle. They say, “I want to file for an abandoned vehicle title.” This often comes from a preconceived idea that if they say it’s abandoned, it’s “finders keepers” and they get to keep the vehicle through some process for a title just based on it being abandoned. The thinking goes: if somebody doesn’t want it and I want it, I get to own it.

Abandoned Doesn’t Always Mean Yours
What we’re going to show in this article is that if you declare something to be abandoned, many times you won’t get to keep it. Most times, the vehicle technically isn’t legally abandoned under the definition that you might think it is. For example, if you buy a vehicle from somebody and they don’t give you a title, you might say, “I’ll just file for an abandoned vehicle.”

It’s Not Abandoned if You Bought It
That vehicle is not abandoned—you bought it. Even if somebody brings a car to your business or parking lot, or if you had a vehicle that was left for storage and the person didn’t pay their bill, that’s really not an abandoned vehicle. That is a storage lien.

We’re going to talk first about what an abandoned vehicle really is and what you can and can’t do to get a title. Then at the end, we’ll discuss how you can get a title for vehicles that you might think are abandoned but really aren’t.

The Georgia Law Example
First, here’s an example from the state of Georgia. We’re picking this as a sample procedure because Georgia has an abandoned vehicle procedure that’s very similar to most states. Most states actually follow federal law for abandoned vehicles, so they’re all going to be similar.

Per Georgia law, a business or person removing an abandoned or unclaimed vehicle from public right-of-way or public property must go through a process to ensure the rights of the vehicle owners, lienholders, and security interest holders are protected. A certificate of title for an abandoned vehicle cannot be issued on a bond (or on vehicles not required to be titled, model year 1985 and older).

Rights of Owners and Lienholders
What does that mean? That means before you become the owner of that vehicle that you’re saying is abandoned (which it probably really isn’t), all of the other people with interest in that vehicle have to have the right to redeem it. If there’s a previous owner, they have to be notified and told, “Hey, your car is going to be transferred to new ownership. Do you want it?” Any lienholders must receive the same notification.

Storage Fees Aren’t That Simple
You might say, “Well, I’m going to just put a storage bill on it.” You probably won’t be able to put a storage bill on it unless you have a signed contract from the owner of the vehicle agreeing to pay you storage. You can’t just make up storage fees out of thin air. Even if you are a licensed automotive shop with legitimate repair bills, you can’t call it abandoned—you have to call it a mechanic’s lien or storage lien, which is a different process.

Lien Process vs. Abandonment
The law states that information on handling abandoned vehicles requires towing and storage firms to notify vehicle owners and lienholders by law when a motor vehicle has been towed and impounded. Authorized businesses that want to foreclose on a lien—see what that says? It’s not an abandoned vehicle; it’s a lien sale, which is different.

Notification is Required
What are the links to do this? Notice of an abandoned vehicle—those are the notices you have to send out. Disposition of derelict vehicle. Apply for a title and tag for an abandoned vehicle after a court order.

Court Order is a Must
What does that tell you? That tells you if you want to get a title for an abandoned vehicle, you can only do it after you get a court order. So why bother with all this? Why not just do a court order title (which you see us talk about quite a bit)? Because once you declare it abandoned according to the abandoned motor vehicle act described here, you have to go through a process of all these notifications and public sales, and you’re probably not going to end up keeping the vehicle.

Don’t Jump In Without Knowing the Risks
Before you jump instinctively to saying “abandoned vehicle, I’m going to file for it,” you need to be very careful. If you start using some of these forms—for example, “Notice of an Abandoned Vehicle”—what’s going to happen is you may block yourself from ever getting a title because you’re going to have to show that you used this form.

A “Notice of an Abandoned Vehicle Request for Information” requires the company removing or storing the vehicle to complete the towing and storage information, and you have to have a license for this. You can’t just make up storage in your driveway or in your business parking lot. You have to notify all the parties.

You Swear Under Penalty of Perjury
If you see the very clear instructions, it will tell you that you have to do this under penalty of perjury: “I swear and affirm that the vehicle described was unattended, removed at the request of a police officer or private property owner in compliance with the motor vehicle act.”

You Could Lose the Title
What’s going to happen is after this vehicle has been transferred (or is in the process of being transferred), the owner of the vehicle is going to get a letter from the DMV saying, “Hey, remember that car that you used to own? It’s being transferred to somebody else. Do you think that any of these facts are not true?” If they dispute or contest any of the facts, guess what’s going to happen? They’re going to revoke your title, and they might even take action against you for doing the process the wrong way.

Final Takeaway and Alternative Options
The takeaway from this is: don’t make “abandoned vehicle” your first idea for getting a title, even though you might have read about it on web forums, chat groups, or heard about it from classic car enthusiasts. Abandoned vehicle is not the process of getting a title—it’s a process of getting rid of a vehicle, which is probably not what you’re trying to do.

If you have more questions about how to work through all this, click the link below and we can tell you more about it. If you found this helpful, be sure to check out other articles on our site to see if there’s further information that could give you more insight into resolving your particular situation.

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How To Get A Title From The Lienholder Paid off or Charge off

What Is a Vehicle Lien Release?
What is a vehicle lien release and how do you get one? Well if you’ve paid off your car, paid off the loan, and you need to get the title for it, what happens is the lender, the bank you borrowed the money from, normally will take the title that they were holding. Because when you finance a car, they hold the title, they don’t give it to you because they’re the lien holder. They hold the title and when you pay it off, they take that title out of their drawer, they sign it paid, stamp it, and they mail it to you.

What If the Title Gets Lost?
But what if you lose that title? What if they never send it to you? What if it gets lost in the mail? Well, the problem is, even though you paid off that lien, the lien record will still be in the DMV database because the lien holder normally doesn’t remove it from the lien record. They just sign it, stamp it, and give it to you. So then what do you do? Well, the lien holder doesn’t have another title to give you. You can’t call them up and say “Hey, mail me another title.” They only have one title.

Getting a Lien Release Document
But what you can get is a lien release and on the screen you see an example of that from the state of Texas and it’s a form that the lien holder can look up. There’s a few other forms that go with it and they can fill it out, sign it, mail it to you. And then once you get this, you bring that to the DMV and they give you a title. Well, how do you get it? Well, a lot of times people will say “I’ll just call up the lien holder, I’ll pick up the phone, I’ll dial my bank and I’ll tell them I need a title or lien release.” And the lender is going to tell you one of two things. They’ll either tell you “Yeah we can’t do it because we already gave you one.” Or they might say “Yeah we’ll send it.” And then they never do. People have been waiting months and they never get it. Sometimes they’ll tell you to go to some website to order online, but the website doesn’t really have anything.

Why the Lenders Delay
The reason for it is because lenders, banks, financial institutions, car loan companies, they don’t have a lien release department. There’s not people just sitting around in an office somewhere waiting to do this work—to pull up this form, find it, look up the records, sign everything. They have to sign a bill of sale, they have to sign a letter of non-interest, they have to do a bunch of work. There’s nobody sitting around with that extra time to do it. So they’re going to just kind of give you the runaround and blow you off. They’re going to say “Get out of here.”

Prepare the Forms Yourself
So what do you do? The best way to do it, even though it doesn’t seem fair, is for you to prepare all the forms. This form you see on the screen, this release of lien, is one example. A letter of non-interest, declaration of facts, the three or four documents that they need. You prepare them all, print them on paper and mail them to the lien holder. What we have found over the years is that’s really the only way.

Making It Easy for the Lender
Any chance of getting that lien release, even though you should have it and we think you deserve it, the bank’s not going to do it unless you do all the work. And that’s how we do it. This is an example of a package that we send to lien holders. We prepare all the documents—the lien release, the letter of non-interest, declaration of facts. We also put an envelope in it for them to send it to the client with a stamp on it. That way the bank doesn’t have to do any work, all they have to do is sign it. Then we also prepare the documents that the client needs for a title because once you get the lien release, now you have to go to DMV to get a title or mail it in. We give you an envelope to mail it to the DMV too.

Recommended Process
So what we recommend doing is to do it the same way we do—prepare this package of documents, send one half to the lien holder, one half to the DMV, and you’ll get your title. It’s a little bit of a pain in the neck because you have to look up these forms, find out where they are. They’re all available, you know, from the DMV. You can go down to the DMV in person, ask them for these forms, take them, fill them in, mail them to the lien holder, put a return envelope with a stamp. We recommend that because here’s the thing—see this book of stamps? Not many people or companies have stamps laying around anymore because everything is online, bill pay, nobody has stamps. So if you send your document to the lender, they sign it, and now that person at the desk is looking around for a way to send it—they don’t have a stamp, they have to go to the mail room—they’re just going to throw it away. They don’t want to do any work. So do the work for them.

If You Didn’t Pay Off the Car
Now what if you didn’t pay off your car? What if it’s a charge off or a write-off? You can do the same thing. You can prepare that package of documents, mail it to the lender. Most times they’ll pull it up on their screen, yep it’s a charge off, and they sign it and mail it to you. There’s a backup with a magistrate title we’ve talked about in other videos, you can look that up. Either way, if you’re going to try to communicate with the lien holder, don’t torture yourself by trying to do it by phone or email or fax or text. Do it all in writing.

Final Tips and Reminders
If you do anything where they have to do any kind of work, that package of forms takes an hour or so to put together, an hour and a half sometimes, sometimes two hours. If you’re asking them to do it, there’s probably not going to be a person there that wants to drop everything else in their job and do this for you. So even though it’s a little extra work, if you want that lien release, put that together. Our website will give you instructions on how to do it. It’ll make it a little bit easier for you. But don’t leave it to chance and let that lien holder drag you around and basically give you the runaround and not give you what you need to get a title for your vehicle.

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Car Titles Not In The Owners Name With Bill Of Sale

What Is Curb Stoning?
Many of you have been a victim of this very common used car scam called curb stoning, although you may not have known what the name of it is. Sometimes you’ve heard it called title jumping or title skipping. What it entails is when a person is trying to flip a vehicle, what they’ll do is they’ll find a vehicle that they can buy for cheap—maybe at an auction, maybe from a private seller—and they’ll take that title and on the back it’ll be signed over to them. But what they won’t do is they won’t bring that title down to the DMV.

The DMV and Skip Titles
They won’t go to the DMV to get a new title in their name, pay the fees, pay the tax, and properly transfer it. They’ll just flip it and skip it over to you and sign the back. The problem with that is it voids the title. The only time you can reassign a title is if you’re a licensed dealer, and many times these curb stoners, as they’re called, will just flip it to you and now it’s your title problem. So you may have received a title that’s signed over to you improperly, and you didn’t know about it until you went to the DMV, which is even worse.

Expert Advice and Options
Why do they call it curb stoning? Well, curb stoning is called that because these are dealers that don’t have an official dealership license. They don’t have a repair shop license, they don’t have a business or a building—they just sell cars on the curb. That’s why they call it curb stoning. They’ll put an ad on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp. They’ll tell you to meet them at some intersection or in a parking lot, and they take your cash, they give you a title that’s not going to be usable, and now you’re on your own.

How the Scam Works
This article from Autotopian is a great description of it. You notice the picture says “buyer beware,” right? You really have to be careful of doing this because if you have that title, you could actually have the title revoked. You might even find out there are liens on it. You might find out it’s a salvage title. But either way, you’re going to have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops to get a title.

How To Protect Yourself
So avoid these cars like the plague. Don’t buy a skip title. If the seller is not the same person printed on the front, you have to check their ID—avoid that car because it’s going to be a title problem. Even if it’s really, really cheap, you could run into problems getting a new title with your name on it.

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