Title Loophole Options Instead Of Vermont?

So if you’re a car collector or automotive enthusiast, you may actually purchase vehicles like on Craigslist or barn finds. Occasionally, you could come across vehicles that don’t have a title. For many years, there was a Vermont loophole that people used all the time to get titles. You’ve seen it featured on Hagerty Insurance, Car and Driver, Jalopnik, and even on our website. Car Titles has talked about this Vermont title loophole, and it was available for 15, almost 20 years as a way to get a title if you’re missing documents. However, in June of 20123, the state of Vermont, under pressure from many different states’ Department of Motor Vehicles, cancelled and closed that loophole. So, you can’t use it in order to get a title when you’re missing paperwork.

New Title Process
So what do you do now? What’s the new loophole? What’s the new process? Well, the method to get a title is not anything new. It’s not something that was created recently. In fact, it was always in existence, and in most cases, it was better as an option than the Vermont process. It had better results, it was cheaper, it was faster. So let’s take a look at what this alternative process is for those who have missing title paperwork that need to get a legal title certificate in your name. This is the end result you’re looking for: a title certificate. It’s a legal document issued by a government agency. It shows not only that the vehicle exists, but it proves that you are the legal owner of the vehicle. It’s a government document. You can’t buy one from a company, you can’t download one from the internet. It is a certificate issued by a state government agency, usually called the Department of Motor Vehicles. Although some states call it, um, Pennsylvania calls it PennDOT, Department of Transportation. Some states call it Secretary of State or Bureau of Motor Vehicles. They don’t give out titles just on a verbal request. They don’t give out titles with a bill of sale either. You have to have something proving that the legal owner currently has transferred it to you, and if you don’t have that, you’re pretty much out of luck.

Alternative Title Methods
In some states, you can do a bonded title, which is buying a surety bond from a bonding agency. There’s a lot of downsides involved with that, and we talk about that in other videos. You can get more information on our website at cartitles.com. But today, we’re going to talk about the alternative process to Vermont, which is a court-ordered title. The way this works, and you can see one example on this screen, we’ll go through this in detail, is you file four documents in the county court where you reside.

Court-Ordered Title Process
The first document is a petition. This is an example from Pennsylvania, a petition for involuntary transfer of a vehicle. Basically, you’re telling the court, “I want you, the court, to declare me to be the owner, to transfer it from the current owner to me based on the evidence I provide.” The evidence could be a bill of sale, it could be proof of payment. Sometimes people have text messages or emails from the seller. You first include the petition of what you want them to do. This petition could be for anything, but in this case, it’s for a transfer of ownership, a declaration of ownership in your name.

Affidavit of Facts and Additional Documentation
The other document you’re going to submit to the court is what’s called an affidavit of facts. That is a narrative of how you obtained the vehicle. It could be something as simple as, “I purchased it on Craigslist, the seller didn’t have a title, they had a bill of sale,” that kind of thing. You’re going to state the facts of how you came to be in possession of the vehicle and describe that vehicle: year, make, model, VIN number, that kind of thing. Every county has some different particulars on how they do this. Most counties don’t have a package like this. You see on this screen right here, you see Luzerne County in Pennsylvania has a pre-prepared form. It tells you where to fill in the blanks. There are 3,611 counties in the country. There’s only a handful that have forms you can just print out and fill in. Most counties, you have to start from scratch and type all this up, all these words on this one or on the example from the other county. You have to type up all these words yourself, and the court can’t help you.

Declaration of No Interest and Title Application
Most courts don’t have a thing called a court-ordered title. It’s kind of like walking in and saying, “I want to do a dog bite lawsuit,” right? They don’t care what the case is about; they just care that you’re meeting the standards of their court. So, you prepare the petition, the affidavit of facts. In some places, in most courts, you also need to prepare a declaration of no interest. That says, “I’m not aware of anybody else with an interest in the vehicle or a claim in the vehicle.” If you know someone’s looking for the car or that there’s a relative that wants it back or it’s out for repo, you have to tell the court that. If you don’t tell the court there are other parties that might have a claim, then you’re going to be providing false information. It doesn’t necessarily mean those people will get the vehicle. You just have to let the court know that somebody is making a claim to it, and it’s up to the court to decide who to give the vehicle to. Then the fourth item is a title application, so they can sign it, and you submit it to the DMV.

Administrative Process
It’s pretty straightforward. It’s not a situation where you’re going to have to go and do a big Jack McCoy “Law and Order” court case with a jury and spend three days doing testimony. Normally, it’s done administratively. If you file these with the court, and in Pennsylvania, it’s the prothonotary office, they will evaluate it. They might do some research on the vehicle. They might do a background check on the vehicle to make sure it’s not stolen, no liens, no salvage, no back taxes. If everything’s legit, they will sign the declaration of ownership, the petition. You bring that to the DMV or the titling division, and they give you a title. Sometimes, they might ask you to do something else, like take a photo of the VIN number to prove you’re in possession of the vehicle. Sometimes, they might want a copy of your license. Sometimes, you have to go to the clerk after it’s all done, raise your right hand, and swear under oath that everything is true just so that they know that you’re doing it under perjury.

Disclaimer and Resources
Remember, we’re not attorneys. We’re not giving you official legal advice. We’re just giving you some guidance on how this works. We have a whole section on our website at cartitles.com explaining exactly how this works. We have videos you can watch with instructions. We even have some examples of some of the forms. We have a title service if you want us to prepare these documents for you, based on your direction and your information. But the court-ordered title is the most powerful method because the DMV or the titling authority or PennDOT or Secretary of State, whoever does titles in your state, they’re not allowed to hand you a title to give you one of these golden ticket magic papers unless you can prove to them you’re the owner. A bill of sale, your verbal statement, nothing like that is allowable at the DMV.

Court vs. DMV
The court, though, can take that under advisement, and they can make decisions the DMV is not allowed to make, like really who’s the owner. All they can do is, if the legal owner signs a proper title, boom, they can give you a title. But if you don’t have that from the last owner, they can’t do anything. They’re not allowed to, nor do you want them to. Because if they could just do something verbally with a bill of sale, if you had a car that you owned and it was your pride and joy, anybody could walk into the DMV with some fake bill of sale and say, “Hey, I want a title for this vehicle,” and you’d be out of luck. So you don’t want the DMV to make decisions about ownership. You only want a government agency like a court, in this case, Court of Common Pleas, to do it.

Preparing Court Documents
You might have to fill out some cover sheets, like this is a civil cover sheet. This one is a request for scheduling on the docket. Another civil cover sheet. You’re probably going to want to review these and look at the instructions on our website if you’re going to do it yourself. We have great resources for do-it-yourselfers. We love to help do-it-yourselfers. In this case, right here on Section A, they have name of plaintiff. Check here if you have no attorney, self-represented. So you don’t have to have an attorney. This is not something that requires an attorney. It’s mostly administrative. You want to make sure you’re doing it correctly, and the forms are done right. If you are in a state or county where they don’t have pre-created forms like this example, then what you can do is you can use the wording from the generic ones we have on our website and find a court case in your county for something else, like a dog bite or some small claims suit, and look at the format. Is it double-spaced, triple-spaced? How wide are the margins? Do they list the plaintiff first, the defendant first? How do they do it? Then use that format in a Word document or Google Drive to make a form that matches how that looks and just put your own information on it.

Final Tips and Assistance
That’s a great way to be able to get the process started without having to either pay somebody or jump through a bunch of hoops. It’s the most powerful method. You’re going over the head of the DMV. The court trumps DMV. It’s like rock-paper-scissors. Court is better than DMV. And if the court says it, they have to do it. Even if the DMV wants to do something, they want to help you, you really can’t expect them to do something that’s against their rules. It sounds like they’re giving you the runaround. It sounds like they are making it difficult for you or it’s bureaucracy. But they have standards. They can’t just be switching titles around without proper documentation. It’s a nuisance for you, but it does protect people from losing their cars or their vehicles through some sketchy improper title transfers.

Seeking Professional Help
Which brings me to another method. If you are in a situation with a title problem, it’s okay to get help. There are title companies and assistance you can get. Just make sure that you know how the title is being obtained. You don’t want to just sign over your vehicle to somebody and let them do whatever, and then a title shows up in the mail because you don’t know how that title was obtained. You’re on the hook for any title that’s issued, especially if you sign a power of attorney or sign over your ownership to somebody. They can do whatever they want with that process, and if for some reason it’s discovered later that it was done improperly, you could lose your title. There’s lots of examples of titles being revoked, and you don’t want to be any part of that. So if you have questions, you can reach us on our website. We even have live consultations available if you want to get more questions answered without actually committing to purchasing services. We’re glad to be of assistance, and we’ll talk to you then.

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