Title registration rant
I know this is my fault. I am trying to get a title for my fifth that I lost. I can't get ahold of the seller, I bought it out of state, asked the dmv what I should do, this was their response: Subjec...
Forum Discussion
msmith1199 wrote:doxiemom11 wrote:
We sold a car once, signed over the title to the purchaser. Two years later, we were approached by a gentleman we had never met that was now the 3rd or 4th purchaser since we had signed over the title. No one had ever transferred it to their own name. We, the original owners had to file for a duplicate title ( we needed the VIN # to do that, luckily we still had some paperwork) and then after we received the duplicate title, we had to sign it over to the current owner. That time we met at the DMV and made sure it was put into his name and not left in our name.
Doesn't your state have a release of liability form? In California if you sell a vehicle you fill out a release of liability form and you file it with DMV. That way if the new owner fails to complete the registration process it doesn't matter to you as the vehicle is out of your name.
I think the release of liability is a part of the title transfer in PA and also why both parties must have their signatures notarized… there are two sections on the back of the title 1 assigned to (the buyer) or 2 a section for reassignment by a dealer…
I haven’t looked for a while and don’t have a PA title in front of me right now, but every state would have their own processes…
Personally I wouldn’t hand a title over to the buyer until I was sure his liability was a matter of record…
For the same reason when I buy a vehicle from a dealer I mail the required paperwork to the state myself… I know dealers and notaries that have lose or not filed them… one auto dealer didn’t file a lot of them disappeared and went under… many people were still obligated to both loans because of it with no recourse for a long time…
I bought a motor scooter that had been sold three times and the title never transferred… the person that had it before me only knew the person he bought it from died…
It was a hassle trying to find out the chain of ownership, but the funny thing was when I did track down the original owner it was someone I knew, and how I found out is while talking to him he said he had two of them just like it… it was a 1984 Honda the he sold 20 years before this…
