Should I Get A Bonded Title Or Abandoned Title?

Understanding Bonded Titles
So how does a bonded title work and how can it help you get a title for a vehicle? Well, most states—42 to be, I’m sorry, 38 to be exact (there are 12 states where you can’t get a bonded title)—will allow you to get a legal title for a vehicle that you have no paperwork on using a surety bond process.

Importance of Bonded Titles
The reason this can help you is you can see this picture here there’s a barn find, right? If you find an old car abandoned on the side of the road, you may be able to use the bonded title process. Even though you see in this article the word abandoned, do not use “abandoned vehicle” as an application for a title in almost every scenario. What’s going to happen is if you declare the vehicle to be abandoned, what’s going to happen is you’re not going to get to keep it because what happens if it’s declared abandoned? The police will ask an authorized towing company to remove it, take it to storage, and then they will sell it at a public auction. Abandoned vehicles are not “finders keepers.”

Applying for a Bonded Title
However, if you file for a bonded title, a surety bond title, it’s basically you going to the licensing title authority and saying, “Look, I legitimately am authorized to have this vehicle. I bought it, it was left on my property, I gave somebody money for it, I traded for it, but I don’t have the old title, I don’t have the transfer of ownership.” Obviously, if you have the title, it would be easy. You know, a title is a certificate that looks like this; it’s got all the official government printing on it. If you have that, you have no problem. But if you have purchased a vehicle, acquired a vehicle, traded a vehicle, or somebody left you a vehicle that has no legal title, now you have to do something different.

Misconceptions About Bonded Titles
One of the things that many people are misinformed about on a bonded title is you have to pay thousands of dollars to get a surety bond. That’s actually not true. What you have to do is you have to purchase a surety bond in an amount that’s equal to the value of the vehicle, but that surety bond is probably only going to cost you a hundred dollars for the actual surety bond. And once you get that surety bond, you have to sign some affidavits, fill out some forms, make sure everything is all I’s dotted, T’s crossed. You submit it to the DMV, and as long as the vehicle is not stolen, doesn’t have any large open liens on it, and it’s not reported as parts only, they’ll give you a title, and you can own that vehicle.

Avoiding the Abandoned Vehicle Designation
Now remember, if you say “abandon” instead of “title” in an article, let’s say this right here: if you find an abandoned vehicle in your barn, that’s not yours to keep. You have to call the police, and the boys in blue will get that relic from you, right? So don’t say it’s abandoned because if it truly is abandoned, it’s probably not yours to keep unless you go through some other processes.

Mechanics Liens and Alternatives
One of the processes they talk about is you can put a lien on the car for a storage fee, but that’s actually not completely accurate. The reason why is, in order to do that, you have to be a licensed automotive shop, and you have to have signed repair orders saying somebody brought this car in for service. In fact, there’s so much attempted fraud with that process that the state of Oregon says you need a twenty thousand dollar bond before applying for a mechanics lien. Body shops and other auto repairs will have to obtain a twenty thousand dollar bond in order to be able to assert a lien on a vehicle for non-payment. So most states are going to this model or already have, for that matter. You have to be a licensed automotive facility, you have to have a signed repair order, and you have to post a twenty thousand dollar bond.

Avoiding Fraudulent Mechanics Liens
There’s many easier ways to do it. Even if you have a buddy of yours that has a repair shop that wants to put in a fake mechanics lien, don’t do it because they’re going to audit that lien. They’re going to audit all of these mechanics liens processes. If you don’t have all the documents from the owner and when the ownership is changed, they’re going to send a letter to that prior owner that says, “Look, somebody filed for a mechanics lien on your vehicle to change the ownership. Did you bring your car in for service somewhere?” And if that person says, “No, I sold it on Craigslist,” or “I traded it in,” or “I left it in some field,” they’re going to revoke that mechanics lien, and they’re going to probably seize the vehicle. So don’t put in a fake mechanics lien. What you want to do is do a bonded title.

Court Order Titles as an Alternative
Another thing you can do is a court order title, and this article goes on to talk about it. There might be another way by getting a judgment of ownership. They might ask the applicant to make some efforts to contact the owner, and you have to file it with the court in the county where you reside. If you file a claim of ownership with the court and an affidavit, the court can give you a judgment. You bring that to the DMV to get a title. You can do that without getting a surety bond.

Conclusion
So get more information on both the surety bond and a court order title. Those are definitely good ways to go. They’re much better than even the Vermont loophole that people do all the time because Vermont’s going to charge you big-time sales tax. We’ll talk about that in another video. But check out bonded title and court order title as options to solve your problem.

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Court Ordered Titles Instruction – Client Services

Thank you for your order from cartitles.com. Your package for the court order title documentation has a number of different documents in it, so here’s some basic information to get you started.

Checklist and Signing Requirements
First of all, look for on the top page of your package a checklist of the steps you need to go through for the court order title. First of all, there are several forms that you will need to sign. The one thing we can’t do is we can’t sign your name for you. You have to sign your name, and almost every county in the country requires an ink-on-paper signature to submit the package to the county clerk, the court clerk, to start the court order title process.

Variations in Court Requirements
Now, keep in mind that every court is going to be a little bit different, and even from week to week, month to month, the exact requirements of the court may change. This is why it’s very important to get your package filed with the court as soon as possible. There may be some other steps you need to do, for example, file a vehicle history request with your DMV. The DPPA form that’s included in your package, you may be required to send out notices to prior owners that may be in your package. But if you start that petition filing with the court as soon as possible, it’ll start the clock ticking on getting your file in front of the judge or magistrate.

Legal Advice Disclaimer
Now remember, we’re not attorneys, we’re not giving you legal advice. The court will advise you what they’re going to need and what they don’t need. We recommend that you file the petition and the affidavit without a great deal of supporting documents. Let the court ask you for supporting documents. At some point, you may need to submit the prior history report that you get from the DMV, but wait until they ask for it to submit it.

Filing the Petition
File the petition as soon as possible. At the same time, file the request for the DMV to get that prior owner report back to you. Don’t wait until you get that back to submit to the court. Here’s why: most counties in the country will have a week or so lag time to give you a hearing date, to give you a response date. You want to get them started on scheduling you on the docket, on the court calendar, on the schedule as soon as you can. That way, while they’re doing their end, maybe they’re going to do some research on the vehicle, maybe they’re going to do some other backgrounding, you can do things like request a history report, pull together documentation, get that court filing started as soon as you can.

Mailing the Documents
Now, how do you do that? In your package, there will be an address for your court. We recommend mailing it to that address. Don’t go in person. Don’t, you know, go to the courthouse. They want as few people in the courthouse as possible. And if you do it by mail, maybe that’s a day of bringing it in person. But that way, if they do need something, they can contact you rather than confusing them with information if you walk in the door.

General Information
Again, this is general information. There are 3,611 counties in the country. Every county is a little different. What you want to do is get that thing filed. That way, they can tell you how they prefer to do it. In fact, different magistrates in the same county may have different preferences on how they want to proceed with your case. So get it filed, let them tell you what they need.

VIN Verification and Additional Requirements
Be prepared for a few things. They may require you to do a VIN verification, have a police officer come look at the vehicle and verify the VIN number. They may also require you to take a picture of the VIN number to prove you’re in possession of the vehicle. So take a photo of your VIN number as soon as you can. Make sure you have a valid ID. If your driver’s license is expired, get that renewed because you may need that.

Post-Judgment Steps
Remember, once you get that judgment of ownership from the court, if they give it to you, you’re going to need to file that with the DMV, and there’s also paperwork in your package for the DMV title application as well. Get that form filed.

Contacting Us for Assistance
If you do have questions that aren’t answered in this video or in your package, email our help desk. Help@cartitles.com is the email; you see that on the screen. You can call us up too, but remember, our title processors are on hold all the time with the DMV. So if you email, a lot of times they can answer you back much quicker by email than if you call in and wait for them to be off the phone with the DMV. You can usually get a faster answer by email because while they’re on hold with the DMV, which they are all day, they can still answer emails. It’s harder for them to answer a phone call. So use the email. If you do request a phone call, put that in your message, and we’ll get back to you.

Final Encouragement
But get that paperwork started. We’re glad to be of assistance. We know how hard it is to get titles, and we’d like to eliminate the bureaucracy as much as we can.

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Can You Renew Your Vermont Loophole Plate?

Vermont Vehicle Registration Loophole Overview
So you have a vehicle that is registered in Vermont but you don’t live in Vermont. Maybe you used the Vermont loophole so-called loophole last year, the year before, or sometime in the past. You have your Vermont registration, you have your Vermont license plate, maybe you actually put it on the car and were driving around in your state. You weren’t supposed to, but some people do. Now what do you do? Well, you may have successfully renewed that registration a couple of times in the past. Well, now all that’s coming to an end.

New Changes in Vermont DMV Policy
You probably have seen the news if you’ve been watching our channel, watching our website. We’ve been talking about this for years that it’s going to happen, but now it did happen. Here’s the important things to remember. You see the document on the screen, out of State registration certification in concert with other jurisdictions, meaning that other states put pressure on them. The Vermont DMV now evaluates all out-of-state transactions based on your home state laws. To that end, the department will not process these transactions unless the owner of the vehicle can establish a connection to the state of Vermont. Effective immediately, you have to complete this form to process your transactions.

Home State DMV Certification Requirement
What is that transaction? You basically have to get the Department of Motor Vehicles in your home state to sign certifying that the home state laws do not require them to register the vehicle there. It says right here, “To be completed by the Home State Department of Motor Vehicles or a comparable agency.” Some states call it something else: PennDOT in Pennsylvania, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Either way, whatever government agency issues titles in your state has to sign this. By my signature below, I am certifying that the state of whatever your state is does not require residents to register vehicles in their state. Authorized representative name, email.

DMV Verification Process
So when you send this form in to renew your registration or get a new registration, the DMV is going to verify this with your state. So what states allow you to register out of state? Almost none. There’s a few states that allow dual registration, for example, if you were a snowbird and you go to Florida and you have a vehicle that you leave in Florida. You can register it there from another state. It’s not intended to be used in another state from Vermont. So what’s going to happen is when you go to renew your Vermont registration license plate, it’s going to get rejected.

Steps to Take with Current Vermont Registration
So what do you do? That’s the big question. What do you do about this? First of all, if you have a current Vermont registration that’s not expired and a license plate, what you can do, which you should have done when you first got it, is transfer it to your state to get a title in your state. How does that kind of work? Well, let’s go through the instructions, what the details are. We’ll also talk about what happens if maybe your registration is expired and what are you going to do if your state rejects Vermont registration.

State Rejections and Ban on Vermont Registrations
Many of the states that were behind this ban being enacted don’t take Vermont registrations anymore. I’m going to zoom in right, let me zoom out a little bit here. In concert with other state jurisdictions, that’s the key. For many years, other states hated the Vermont loophole because they were losing out on tax revenue, registration, all kinds of things. Nobody in other states liked this, but they had to do it because Vermont allowed it. So some states were rejecting it. Most recently, the state of Florida put a big note on the door: “Don’t come to us with your Vermont license plate.”

Grace Periods and Transition Instructions
So you may find that you take your Vermont registration, your Vermont license plate, you bring it to your state to exchange for a title, and they kick you out. Some states are giving you a little bit of a grace period right now because they know now that they’re going to get these vehicles. Some states are out of spite saying no way. But what you should do first, and I’ll give you the details and instructions, you can also check out our website, cartitles.com. We have a whole section on this. We give you instructions on how to do it yourself. We also have a service if you’d like assistance with this. We can help with that too.

Title Application Process
Okay, so first thing you want to do is get a title application for your state, an assignment form to assign that registration from Vermont to you and your state. You apply to your state to get a new title using your Vermont registration as proof of ownership. Switch it over and you’re good to go. One of the problems that may come up is if you have used your Vermont registration for more than one year. If the date on your Vermont registration is longer than 12 months from now, you might have to pay tax again. You paid sales tax in Vermont, you might have to pay it again to your state.

Potential Tax Implications
And it gets worse. Most states will charge you tax on your bill of sale, whatever you say you paid for. But see, here’s the problem. Now you’re bringing them a Vermont registration, which is your proof of ownership. That Vermont registration is now going to have a value on it because Vermont doesn’t use bill of sale; they use book value. So when your state sees that registration, you need to give it to them because that’s your proof of ownership. If you don’t give them that, you have no proof of ownership. We’ll talk about another way to do it that might not have the same problem.

Issues with Vermont Registration Value
But now you bring them the registration, and it says book value $10,000. You only paid $1,000 for it on your bill of sale, right? So if you had switched it over before, you can go by your bill of sale. But now it’s been more than a year, they’re going to reassess it. They’re going to go by the $10,000 on the Vermont thing. Boom, $600-$700 in taxes. You already paid that to Vermont. Now you got to pay it again, but that’s what you might have to do.

Alternative Title Options
What’s another option? Well, you can actually not use your Vermont registration as your proof of ownership, and you could just do a bonded title. Forty-two out of 50 states allow for a surety bond title, which means you don’t have to use your Vermont registration. You can just go straight to a bonded title in your state. That would be Plan B. If you don’t want to use your Vermont registration, or if it’s expired. If you let your Vermont registration expire, your state probably won’t accept it as ownership. They might, they might. Sometimes they still use expired documents. You can try, but if for some reason that fails, you can do a bonded title.

Misconceptions About Bonded Titles
And I know what you’re thinking. I don’t want to do a bonded title. Well, first of all, look at the reasons you don’t want to do a bonded title. If it’s because you think you have to pay 1.5 times the value of the vehicle, then think again. Because a lot of people have the misconception that when you get a bonded title, you have to pay one and a half times the value of the vehicle to the state. That’s not how it works. If you have a vehicle, let’s say, that’s $6,000, 1.5 times $6,000 is $9,000. People think, “I gotta pay $9,000.” That’s not how it works. You have to get a surety bond in the amount of $9,000, but that’s only going to probably cost you $100. Surety bonds for vehicles that are $10,000 or less usually cost $100. And you can check out our website probonds.com for some ideas on valuation. So that’s Plan B.

Magistrate or Court Order Title Option
Another option you can do is what’s called a magistrate title or a court order title. It’s not a big deal. Don’t get scared about court order. Don’t get scared about court process. It’s not like Law and Order. You don’t have to go for some big court case. All you’re doing is you’re presenting your story to have a magistrate clerk or a court clerk or a judge sign to say you are the owner. You file a petition with the county. You file an affidavit of how you got the car, just like you would tell anybody the story: “I got the car. I bought it on Craigslist. I paid $1,000 for it. The guy gave me a bill of sale.” You take that story, you put it on an affidavit, you attach it to a petition.

Filing a Court Petition
You also include what’s called a letter of not interest that says, “I don’t know of anybody else looking for this vehicle,” right? “No one’s trying to get it. No one claims it. I’m not aware of any other claims against it.” You put the right package together, you submit it to the court clerk. Normally, all they do is they look at it, they read it. They’ll probably do some background checking on the vehicle to make sure it’s not stolen, no liens, and they sign that petition. And now you take that petition that says legally you are the owner, slap it on the counter at DMV, and you get a title.

Assistance and Resources Available
Now remember, we’re not attorneys. We’re not giving you legal advice. There are 3,611 different counties in the country. They all operate a little different. Our website will give you instructions on how to do this. As always, we also have assistance. If you want us to help with this process, we can help with the paperwork. But either way, that’s Plan C. The first thing to remember is hope is not lost. Just because your Vermont registration is expiring and you cannot renew it, you have these options that you can do. Now, you may not want to do any of them. You may just want to sell the vehicle and dump it. That’s fine. You could do that too. But you have options.

Addressing the Expiring Vermont Registration
In hindsight, you might say, “Well, gee, I wish I switched it over sooner.” Water under the bridge. You already did what you did. It’s not the end of the world. You made a decision at the time. Maybe that was the best decision to make, but now that’s not available. Vermont will not renew registrations for out-of-state residents going forward. At some point, we’re still getting some feedback that maybe there’s some still slipping through. But you know, Vermont has been inundated with some flooding. A lot of their DMVs were shut down for a while, so maybe some things were held up and they went through.

Final Recommendations and Contact Information
So the bottom line is that if you get rejected for a renewal, which you probably will, those are your options. Just transfer it over to your state. Make sure you do it before it expires. So if you’re going to try to get the Vermont renewal, do that soon, like do that two or three months before it expires. Don’t wait till last minute because if it expires now, you bring it to your state, they might reject it. If that does not work, which it may or may not, you have bonded title, you have court order title, magistrate title. You can do those things.

Tax Considerations and Legal Compliance
Keep in mind that even if you could switch it over, you might not really like the tax implications. You don’t want to do tax evasion. You don’t want to try to scam out of taxes. But if you are presenting as your proof of ownership the Vermont registration, it now establishes the value at whatever Vermont said, which may not be required under the law of your state. Your state might say, “Bill of sale is allowable. You have a bill of sale for $1,000, that’s your value,” right? So if you try to use that Vermont registration as your proof of ownership, the Vermont registration might say $9,250 is the value because that’s what they put on it. Now they have to use that value. So be careful about what you’re using. You don’t want to overpay taxes. You want to pay the fair right amount of taxes. You don’t want to do tax evasion or get any kind of trouble for that.

Possible Penalties for Delayed Registration
But if you present something like the Vermont registration that you’ve been using for three years, first of all, you might have to pay the higher taxes. Second of all, your state might say, “You’re going to pay a fine because you used this vehicle in the state for three years. We see you got this registration in 2020, it’s 2023. We’re going to charge you three years’ worth of late fees for not switching it over right away.” See where that’s going? So be careful about doing that and find out the laws in your state. Every state’s different.

Conclusion and Further Assistance
Regardless, for any of those methods, if you do decide you want assistance, our website will give you free help for do-it-yourselfers. If you want to be a do-it-yourselfer, we have free instructions, we have videos, we have all kinds of details. If you want assistance, we have some very efficient ways to do that where we’ll prepare documents for you for multiple ways you can try to switch it over. If that doesn’t work, we’ll give you the documents for bonded. If that doesn’t work, we have an option for court order. So we’ll help you all the way through the process, whatever you want to do, because we know it’s bureaucratic. We know how hard it is to get titles. We know what kind of difficulty it is. We like to try to help people with the DMV, and we’d like to help the DMV. The DMV doesn’t want you coming in with all kinds of paper scattered, handwritten, they can’t read. They want more neat, clean, orderly processes. So we help you make it easier for you and we make it easier for the DMV.

Contact Information and Final Remarks
A lot of times we talk to DMV employees and executives, and they like the fact that somebody is helping make it more streamlined for the consumer. Not all of them, but we talk to some of them on a regular basis, working on files for our clients. So if you have other questions, feel free to email our help desk: help@cartitles.com is the email. If you have comments, put them below. Let us know what’s happening with your Vermont registration. If you’re running into a roadblock, which you probably will, it’s the end of an era. Gravy train’s over. Party’s over for Vermont. So now you have to do something maybe a little different. We’ll make it easy for you.

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Why Is It Hard To Get A Title For A Car?

So you ever wonder why it’s so hard to get a title for a vehicle if you purchase a vehicle and when you bought it if you didn’t get a legal title certificate like this one that has all the vehicle information and ownership information on it you can’t just stroll into the DMV and tell them to give you a title. The reason why is because having the old title is protection that the ownership is legit.

The DMV’s Role in Title Verification
In this article, we’re going to talk about today is one reason that protects you when the DMV is giving you a hard time about getting a title right you might just think well just give me the title how hard could it be why you give me the runaround. Well, the reason is when you have a title printed with your name on it for that vehicle that declares you to be the owner and if anything happened with the ownership of that vehicle before you bought it then they’re not going to give you the title just like once you have the title you don’t want somebody else just demanding a title from the DMV and taking away your ownership.

Fraudulent Title Transfers: An Oklahoma Case Study
Here’s a good example of the kind of things that people come up with the crazy creative ways this happened in Oklahoma where they were defrauded out of a hundred thousand well how did this work well what happened is this kid he’s 19 years old he walked into a car dealership with a vehicle that was worth forty eight thousand dollars the dealership agreed to purchase the vehicle for forty eight thousand dollars but there was a loan on it and the loan was for Seventeen hundred and thirteen dollars okay so the dealership said I’ll give you forty eight thousand we’ll pay off your loan of seventeen thousand and we’ll give you the difference we’ll give you a check you received the check for forty six thousand two seventy two.

The Mechanics of the Fraud
Now before they they gave them the check they verified with the lien holder the bank the lender that was actually Seventeen hundred dollars owed right dealerships do this all the time they contact lien holders they buy vehicles with liens on them all the time and what happened is he also came back to the dealership a couple days later with another car where the payoff amount was 22.44 and the vehicle was worth sixty six thousand so they gave him the difference on that one too but here’s what happened right before he went into the dealership he made fraudulent transfers on the balance for those loans.

The Execution of the Fraudulent Transfers
So what he did was he went into the bank and he owed let’s say sixty thousand dollars on the vehicle and he made a fake wire transfer or wrote a fake check to the lien holder to pay the loan down to pay it down from sixty thousand down to two thousand right so now on the books it looks like there’s only two thousand owed but in reality that transfer that reduced it was fake. So within a few days the bank reversed that payment and now the payoff went back up but by now the kid already got the money right and he ran off so the bank now pays the payoff to the lien holder two thousand dollars and they don’t get the title because the lien holder says no the payoff is sixty thousand well we thought it was two thousand yeah but that was because of a fake transfer.

The Risks of Fake Transfers
And these fake transfers can be made a number of ways you can write a bogus check you can do a fake wire transfer that doesn’t clear you can do an ACH that is invalid there’s a lot of ways to do it and in the meantime the dealership is holding the bag the same thing could happen to you as a car buyer you could have somebody say look I want to sell you this car you pay off my loan give me the difference and you’ll be the owner and you call the bank and you verify the payoff and you send that much and same thing happens.

The Importance of Verifying Title Authenticity
There’s another reason why it’s not good to buy a car without a title even if you do get a title you want to verify it if somebody hands you this title and you give them the money what if you find out later that that title was a duplicate title and they got a fresher newer title since then that they signed over to somebody else many times what these sellers will do is they will get a duplicate title they’ll keep the old one they’ll say they lost it but they keep the old one they’ll take the new title and transfer it to another state that way if you contact your local state it’s still going to be in that person’s name but you won’t know that another state has it because it takes several weeks or months for other states records to come back to your home state.

The DMV’s Protective Measures
So there’s a lot of ways that titles can be scammed so unless you’re handed an actual legal title when you buy a car and you can verify that that title is the most active one with the DMV you’re at risk and that’s why the DMV goes through a lot of steps to verify these things before they hand you a new title it may seem like a pain in the neck it may seem like they’re giving you the runaround a lot of red tape in some ways it is but it’s there to protect you because if later on down the road you own that vehicle fair and square and somebody else does one of these funny business with a title now you’re out your vehicle.

Titles as Valuable Assets
So there’s a reason that titles by definition are difficult to get it’s kind of like if you walked into the bank and say hey just give me ten thousand dollars well they’re going to verify that you actually have ten thousand in the bank and verify your ID because handing you a title is just like the bank handing you ten thousand dollars whatever the value that vehicle is when somebody gives you a title with your name on it that’s like giving you the value of that vehicle and you might say well the vehicle is not worth that much doesn’t matter they take it one thousand dollar vehicle just as seriously as a ten thousand dollar vehicle or a hundred thousand dollar vehicle because to somebody that money is real money.

Final Advice on Title Verification
So be aware that when it comes time to get a title for a vehicle from the DMV the fact that that government agency is kind of being a little difficult about it is there because they’re considering that to be a serious thing when they give you that title they’re granting you legal ownership and if you don’t have the right proper paperwork just a bill of sale they don’t know who signed that bill of sale they don’t know if it’s the actual owner they don’t know if maybe the owner signed it over to somebody else so a bill of sale normally is not sufficient to get a title by itself and that’s why they make you jump through some hoops.

Solutions and Contact Information
There’s solutions to these problems don’t despair if you bought a car without a title as long as it’s legitimate no liens no Salvage no no stolen you can get a title for it just remember it’s not going to be as easy if you got the title like you’re supposed to in fact in most States it’s actually illegal to buy and sell cars without titles no people do it all the time so don’t worry about the fact that it’s going to be a big deal unless there’s something wrong with the history of that vehicle. So if you have other questions you can reach our website cartitles.com or email or help desk help car titles.com is the email.

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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 help@cartitles.com. As an email, we’d be glad to be of assistance.

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