Zombie Car Title Liens From Old Records

Zombie Car Title Liens: How to Deal with Old Liens That Won’t Go Away
Now this article may seem like it has to do with real estate loans, but it actually has a lot in common with car title liens. If you have a car title lien on your vehicle, maybe what’s called a zombie lien, where it’s disappeared, it’s gone, they’re not getting the car, they’re not contacting you, and then all of a sudden it pops up later when you’re trying to get a title. Does that sound like you? Do you have a vehicle that has a lien that’s long since been gone? The lender hasn’t contacted you, maybe they sold it to a collection agency, maybe they did a charge-off, and all of a sudden now you’re trying to sell your car and this lien is blocking you on your title and it’s showing up on your title record. How do you get rid of it? How do you deal with it?

Real Estate Parallels
So we’re going to look at this article that has to do with a mortgage on a house, but all of the same things happen with a lien on a vehicle title. And the story goes like this: imagine the shock when a homeowner’s second mortgage, long believed to be paid off or forgiven, comes back from the dead in the form of a letter from a debt collector. Repay the loan now or face foreclosure. Now you probably didn’t get a letter, but you don’t have to get a letter. If you try to get a title from the DMV, the DMV is going to be the letter. They’re going to say you can’t get a title because there’s a zombie lien on your car title. In real estate, they call them zombie mortgage debts on properties that homeowners believe are long dead through settlement, loan modification, foreclosure, or even charge-off. Many homeowners are being blindsided by notices demanding payment. You were probably blindsided by the DMV telling you there’s a lien on your vehicle that you thought was long gone.

Borrower Confusion
Borrowers believe their mortgages were modified, discharged, or forgiven as they received no further communication for years. We hear that a lot. People have not heard from their lien holder, not heard from their bank, and all of a sudden now there’s a lien on their title. Debt collectors were buying these debts for cheap without the consent or knowledge of the borrower and then pursuing the amount. Now pursuing the amount is one thing, but blocking your title is something else. So what can you do about this if some long-dead zombie car title lien is showing up and blocking your title?

Sending a Lien Release Package
Well, the first thing to do is to send a lien release package to the original lien holder. Forget about the debt collector, forget about the collection agency. Say if your original loan was through, let’s say, Chase Bank. Send a lien release package to Chase Bank. Here’s why: they’re the only ones that can sign off on releasing the lien with the DMV. Now remember, we’re not attorneys, we’re not giving you legal advice, but the DMV is not allowed to accept a letter from a debt collector or collection agency. Even if you paid a collection agency, they can’t sign the lien release because they’re not the original lender.

Legal Nuances
In fact, when the original lender sold that lien or sold that debt to the debt collector, it’s possible that they are no longer allowed to keep the lien on your title record. Again, that’s a legal question that sometimes courts will say no to. If you charged it off or did a write-off or sold it to a debt collector, you can’t keep the lien because you’re charging it off. Some have decided the other way. But if you do send a proper lien release package to the lien holder, we have other videos that explain exactly how to do this. If not, you can click our website cartitles.com or lienrelease.com, a separate website, that will give you instructions on how to do this. We also have a title service if you want assistance with it.

Procedure and Documentation
If you send it to the lien holder in the right way, the right format, the right procedure, chances are some clerk is going to pull up that title and say, “Yep, that’s a charge-off, that’s a write-off.” They sign it, and they send it back to you. Now you might say, “I already tried to call them, I already tried to email them.” Forget calling and emailing; that doesn’t work. You have to do it with a proper package of physical paper documents. You can’t do it by email, you can’t do it by phone; it’ll never work, never work. Plus, if you do it with documentation, now you also have the option if for some reason they’re out of business or they don’t show up or they don’t send it back, you can then file it with your county magistrate to have the magistrate sign it as an alternative to the lien holder.

Importance of Resolution
The important thing to recognize is that these zombie car loans, these zombie title liens are blocking many people from being able to get their title, and they’re creating a problem for well-meaning vehicle owners. You may have bought it from somebody, maybe you charged it off a long time ago and are now prevented from being able to sell their vehicle, renew their registration, or move to another state. A lot of these things are becoming big problems. So it’s important to get that zombie lien off of your car title as soon as possible.

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