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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