Certificate Of Destruction Non Repairable Junk Titles

Buying Parts-Only Vehicles
You see a lot of these vehicles being sold at certain salvage auctions, Copart, or IAA, and it says parts only on the listing. Sometimes it’ll say parts only on the title or on your paperwork. What can you do with this vehicle? What’s going on with parts only?

Understanding “Parts Only” Designation
What parts only means is that the insurance company or the seller of the vehicle has determined that they don’t want this to be sold as an actual vehicle; they want it to be sold as, guess what, parts only. So what you’re supposed to do is buy this vehicle and take it apart. If you look at this vehicle, you have a hood, you have wheels, you have glass, and presumably you have an engine, transmission, drive line, interior parts, computers, and airbags. If you add all that up, it’s probably worth more than the car. Now you’d have the labor cost and the inconvenience of having to dismantle the vehicle, but it’s worth more. And that’s where a lot of these buyers at Copart and IAA are making their fortunes by taking vehicles apart.

What If You Already Bought a “Parts Only” Vehicle?
But what if you come across one or you already bought one that’s parts only? What can you do? Well, you have to be very careful because if it is listed as parts-only and it’s registered in the United States title system as a parts-only vehicle, all 50 states are aware of it. If you try to get a title, they’ll find out about it, and they won’t issue a title for a parts-only vehicle.

Exporting a “Parts Only” Vehicle
Can you export it? Well, maybe you can, but technically, the export rules for CBP (Customs and Border Protection) require that a parts-only vehicle be dismantled into major component parts in order to be shipped out of the country. So if you put a vehicle in your container and you don’t have a title for it, or if the title is parts only, they’re going to want to make sure that vehicle is dismantled. It can’t go out in one piece. Now, we do have a lot of export clients that are finding that that’s not 100% enforced, but if it is enforced and you now have your vehicle in a container, now you have to take that container out of the bonding area, dismantle it, put it back in the container, and ship it. And that could cost a lot of money, and more and more sections of CBP—Savannah, Houston, and Port Elizabeth—are starting to be more cognizant of this and crack down on it.

Reconstructing a “Parts Only” Vehicle
So what if you want to put it back on the road? Well, there are a few ways you can do that, and we’ll talk about it briefly in this video. But if you want more information, you can click the link below, and you can even schedule a live one-on-one consultation with a title agent (myself) to go over the options for your particular vehicle. Make sure you have your VIN number handy if you have a consultation. But one of the things you can do is reconstruct it into an assembled vehicle or a kit car. You can also use it as a major component part for another vehicle that does not have a parts-only designation.

Risks of Title Washing
But beware of schemes that claim to flip the car among a few different states very quickly. If you catch one of them off guard, they’ll give you a title that doesn’t say parts only. Because there’s a few schemes you can do to flip it around five or six different states in a very particular order very quickly, they won’t catch it right away, and they’ll give you a title. The problem is that eventually that title will be revoked when they find out. And if it’s found that you did that flipping scheme (it’s called title washing), it’s a federal felony. And if they see that you’ve done that, they can actually prosecute you for it. So be aware that some people try to do that. It’s less effective now than it used to be because most of the states are now all digital. But if you do get tempted to do that, or if somebody offers to do that for you, be aware that it could get you into some big trouble.

Legal Advice and Conclusion
So you may want to avoid that, and if you do sell a vehicle that was Parts only under a clean title, now that’s also a misrepresentation. So if you’re going to do something like that, get good legal advice from an attorney. So if the guys with the badges and the three letters on their coat show up at your door, you can say, “My attorney told me it’s okay,” because if not, you’re going to get into trouble. Parts-only vehicles are probably better off left alone, no matter how cheap they are, because by the time you go through the trouble of fixing them and doing everything, you’re not going to make that much money. You’ll make more money if you just take it apart and sell all the parts on Craigslist. Again, if you do want more information on parts-only vehicles, you can click the link below to get some written information or to schedule a consultation with a certified title agent.