How much does it cost to get a Lost Car Title Replaced?

So, how much does it cost to get a lost vehicle title replaced? A couple of different scenarios have different costs.

True Duplicate Title Method
First of all, the lost car title prices depend on the method. If it’s a true duplicate title, meaning that you held a title to the vehicle in your hands with your name printed on the front, you can simply go to the DMV. You request a duplicate. The range of costs for that type of scenario in some states is five dollars; it can go up to 60 or 70 dollars in some states. Most of the averages are about twenty bucks. That’s only going to work if you had the last legal title ownership in your name on that vehicle.

Alternate Title Method
The second is an alternate title method, meaning that you never had the vehicle title in your name. You bought it; maybe you’ve got the title signed over from the prior owner, maybe you never got a title, only a bill of sale. If you have a vehicle that’s 15 years old or older, you can simply go to the Vermont DMV, doesn’t matter what state you’re in, and use your bill of sale to get a Vermont registration title and then exchange that into your state. That will cost 48 dollars and up depending on what type of vehicle it is, and then you might have to pay a title fee in your state. Very inexpensive; you can do it yourself, no need to pay any outside title agents.

Contacting Prior Owner
The third scenario is if you have to contact a prior owner of the vehicle to get them to do a duplicate title. In that case, the cost will be the same as a duplicate title, five or twenty or sixty dollars. However, you’re going to have to get that prior owner to sign paperwork to do that. The cost there could be finding the person, getting them to sign something, maybe giving them some financial compensation to sign that power of attorney document to you.

Bonded Title Method
The next method to get a title is a bonded title. If you have some documentation showing you’ve acquired that vehicle legally, you can go to a bonding company in your state. They’ll issue a bond for the vehicle, which you’ll have to pay for. It could be a couple of hundred bucks. You take that down to the DMV, pay a fifty or sixty dollar title fee. Now you have a title that will only work if you have sufficient documentation to show the bonding company that you are the legal owner of the vehicle. They won’t issue a bond otherwise.

Court Order
The last example is a court order. If you have no paperwork, no documentation, you can go to the court, usually the probate court in your county, pending or state you’re in, and they’ll issue a court order title. The problem areas can cost a few hundred dollars in court fees, and that can take up to six months. So, the range of getting a title should be no more than a few hundred dollars to do it yourself if you go through all the process. In most cases, it should be fifty or sixty dollars. There’s almost no scenarios of getting a title that you cannot do yourself. You don’t have to pay somebody to do this. If you’d like to pay somebody for the convenience of doing it, usually you should be able to do that for fifty or sixty dollars additional over the cost. It shouldn’t cost you hundreds.

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This Week’s Car Title Arrests

Car Title Scams Unveiled: Stories of Victims
Every week we’re going to feature a few articles and news stories about car title scams and people that have been damaged by illegal operations with car titles.

Georgia: Forgery Unveiled
Now there’s a couple this week from Georgia Texas Kansas and Indiana the first one is somebody who forged documents for people using out-of-state processes to get titles one of the quotes was an investigators believed that they were assisting out-of-state customers in submitting the forged document so these are customers who were trying to get titles and that the the title agent was forging their name and forging documents to get them titles.

Texas: Title Manipulation
In another case a person failed to send titles to people who paid for them and so they had cars they couldn’t legally drive in Texas there was a man that was charged for changing information on title applications so they would go through DMV illegally so that application normally wouldn’t go through but they changed information so the DMV would accept it and that made the titles illegal in invalid.

Indiana: Theft Charges
Now the last one that guy was charged with six counts of theft and eleven counts of failing to deliver titles when you’re looking at getting a title for a vehicle the bureaucracy with the DMV and what the process might make it tempting to seem like the loopholes are an easy way to go especially when it cost more money but in reality if you have a vehicle that’s your car you deserve to get a title and there’s a legal way to do it to avoid some of these illegal corrupt business practices and people not sending titles.

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Virginia Business Raided Over Car Title Fraud

Title Fraud Bust in Virginia
In this week’s car title fraud news, we came across a story where in Virginia the DMV executed a search warrant and arrested a bunch of people on violations of the criminal and motor vehicle codes related to title fraud.

Investigation Unveils Money Laundering Scheme
They’re looking into how money and vehicles are being transferred. It seems like this company or these people were using vehicle titles of other people and processing the titles as a way to launder money and to move money around.

Vehicle Title Processing Linked to Money Movement
The link is below the video in the comments, but you’ll see that these organizations, these companies were using vehicle title processing in the process of getting titles at the DMV to move money around and to shift the ownership of vehicles to people who may not actually have been the owners.

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Vehicle Title Solutions for Consumers

What are the available title solutions for consumers to replace a title for a vehicle in more complicated scenarios?

DIY Solutions
All of these solutions are do-it-yourself answers. You don’t need to pay anybody to do it. You don’t have to have a title agent do it.

Visit the DMV
The first is to go to the DMV. Start there. They may tell you that they can issue a title with the documentation you have. That’s fine. Try to get a rejection letter. Get some type of response from them in writing so it’ll give you guidelines to go from.

Explore Alternatives
The next thing that you want to do is look to see if there are alternatives in other states. If your vehicle is 15 years old or older, you can go through the state of Vermont, no matter what state you’re in, to get a title for your vehicle. You’ll find instructions on that in other videos we have, or you can ask about it at our website, consumerstitled.org.

Bonded Title Process
If your vehicle is newer than 15 years and you don’t have sufficient documentation for your DMV to issue a title, you may have to go through a bonded title process. You may also look at a court-ordered title depending on what documentation you have.

Contact Prior Owner
The last option that you can look at is to find out who the prior owner of the vehicle is. It may not be that simple because that information is privately held by DMVs and they won’t release it. But if you can find the prior owner, they can hand over a simple document to you. That’s a POA/Transfer of ownership that will give you a document you can then bring to the DMV that will issue a title in your name.

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Car Title Scams

The Importance of Vehicle Titles
So why are there so many scams when it comes to vehicle titles? Well, car titles are the value of the car. Without that piece of paper, the vehicle is just a piece of metal, has no value. Unless you have the piece of paper that declares the ownership.

Reasons Behind Title Scams
In many cases, it’s thought that it’s easier to make and get a title than to create a car. So somebody might come across a car or do something different with the title to add value to the car. It might be trying to remove a salvage brand or some other stamp on the title, a junk title, to make the car worth more.

Risks of Title Manipulation
It might be acquiring a car with limited or sketchy paperwork with the idea of recreating that title later. The problem with car title scams: it’s a game of musical chairs. So at some point, the real story of that car is going to come to light, and the real title status will come to light, and whoever is stuck with the car is going to lose out.

Legal Ramifications
However, whoever took the actions to do something different with the title will also have some liability. Incorrect solutions are illegal. If you have a vehicle that you have come across through legal means, you didn’t steal the car.

Consequences of Illegal Activities
If you get the title through an improper method, that’s just as illegal as dealing in the car. If you forge paperwork to get a title, if you declare the car was abandoned when you actually purchased it to get a title, that’s illegal. It’s also a form of tax evasion because in every transfer vehicle there may be taxes or fees due.

Avoiding Title Scams
So avoid car title scams. Whatever the real story is how you got that car, make sure the paperwork and documentation match that story. If you don’t try to use things like mechanic’s liens or loopholes or out-of-state titles in order to get a title for a vehicle that you’ve acquired, that might ruin your chances of legally owning that vehicle.

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