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I'm in a Yahoo groupd for Microcars and they have been in a discussion about registering non-titled cars in California. I thought some here might also be interested. Sorry about the length. (And of course I know nothing of this living in Ontario - Canada :thumbsup
A process I had been dreading is finally over.
I bought an Isetta project car on a bill of sale so I new it would be no picnic. I armed myself with the Bill of sale and a sheaf of paperwork I downloaded from the website, drug the chassis, motor and shell ont a trailer and hauled Isetta down to the local DMV.
When I get there I am directed to the verification line. Wait, wait, wait and finally one of the people come over and tell me they can not verify it until it has the wheels on and the glass in. I run by the house and add wheels and throw the glass inside and go to a different DMV office. NO it has to be driveable. Arrrggg Thats not what Iwas told.
I gpo inside and ask how to gett eh paperwork started. (I learned on a previous incursion that they fine you if you do not register the car within 30 days of bringing it into California. Where is the title she asks. Got none I say, Need one she says. Don't got one but got a bill of sale. Back and forth like this for a while and I say how do you register those model T's they drag in out of barns. Oh! The clerk in an adjacent cube says you use a X003 "Record not found" (MAGIC WORDS for future reference) Click click clickety click, that will be $66.00 please. That got my toe in the door so to speak. She created an incomplete registration and all I had to do was bring in the assembled car for verification fill out a few forms and I was good ot go.
After a fun filled but frantic weekend in Golden CO I was ready to see how things went. I trailered the car up to the first DMV office and got the same guy I had when I drug the hulk in. He was amazed and quickly checked off the form until he got to body type..................... No check box for one door......................Conferences required...............Back he comes, signs the form and I am good to go. I then walk into the office to finish the registration and it looks like a 3rd world refugee camp. All that was missing was the chickens. Where did all these people come from on a Monday morning! I bailed deciding to come back later. I stopped by the DMV this afternoon and braved the drowds armed with a book and settled down to wait. I lucked out and got the only cheerful DMV clerk on the planet and for an additional $20 I had my paperwork and a nice shiny set of license plates.
The moral of the story is it may take a little patience and some fancy footwork but it is possible to get a car registered in California.
Get a good Bill of Sale,
Fill out the forms in advance.
If the car is not ready to drive away don't bother taking it in for VIN verification but do go in and get the registration started within 30 days to avoid fines (which really add up)
Be gently pushy but courteous (take silly photos of the car to get them laughing)
If you know the license plate number of a similar car or have one registered take that so they can use it as a template for your registration.
Know to mention they have the option of record not found otherwise it can stop you in your tracks.
Good Luck
Next post
Dude! Next time call me. You fill out a statement of facts, saying you've owned the car for 20 years and can't find the pink slip. Works every time. I even stamped my own numbers on my 54 Chevy to match the engine number and I got the pink slip.
Next Post
Gotta agree with Greg 100% about the value of a Statement of Fact. Best may be to have the seller fill out, or at least sign the statement of facts. Mainly they want someone to say that the vehicle was never on the road when it wasn't registered. The form must be downloadable from the DMV site so whoever does the Bill of Sale should be asked to do the statement of fact as well.
That and the Records Not Found are key elements to smoothosity.
Imagine this; When I drove the Oregon titled and registered (current at the time) 2CV in to the Verification line at the then open Mountain View DMV the inspector spontaneously told me that the car didn't need to get smogged in CA. Forget if he was saying it due to the engine size or the year, but we had a nice chat and it turned out he only knew one of the two reasons. Nice guy.
This was matched by a nice woman when I went in to register a Citroen DS21 wagon that had been unregistered for 18 years, donated to a charity without any title or registration paperwork, then passed through about 4 other charities before I paid $500 for it. Each charity passage generated more paperwork, all pink carbon copies, but nothing was ever submitted to the DMV. I carefully piled all the paperwork in chronological order and submitted it and the Bill of sale and statement of facts and VIN verification (that was when the Police would still come out to your house to verify) to the clerk. She went through everything and then removed the top and bottom pink forms, handed all the intervening forms back to me and quietly said " you REALLY want to loose all of these and only have the other two." I thanked her, folded the bad boys and stuffed them in my pocket. other than the fact that the engine was frozen solid as one cylinder had filled with coolant years earlier and then crystallized and corroded all sorts of things, thinks went pretty smoothly.
As Mark so accurately pointed out you may need to try with more than one clerk and maybe even at another DMV but somewhere out there is a DMV clerk who is likely to take care of it for you
Next post
A few comments:
First, if you have a challenging situation it may be best to wait until the lack of a California
budget is solved. Reports are that some DMV employees are quite upset about being in the middle of the budget battle. It might be better to wait with a challenging situation, but do what you can to avoid late fees
Second, the alleged requirements that the vehicle have wheels or glass, etc. apparently is not part of the law and many private VIN verifiers will not be sticky. Also, I understand that some local police departments will do VIN verifications. Some of the cities charge a fee.
Third, most states have a bonding approach to obtaining a title when there are missing documents, but California also has a procedure for vehicles worth less than $5000. I do not know too much about it.
Fourth, a certificate of non operation will not excuse the non-registration of a vehicle unless the vehicle qualifies as an antique or historical vehicle. Many DMV people do not know that a certificate of non-operation works for these vehicles. (For ordinary vehicles, the only away to avoid the fees is a certificate of planned non-operation given ahead of time.)
Next post
Here is the link to the group on California titling and licensing:
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/CADMVtaxes/
The sad reality is that the success at the California DMV office often is a chance situation. They are geared to normal transactions and when you throw them a curve like a specially constructed vehicle, an older car or a three wheeled car they don't even know their own regulations. You may run into someone that tells you that you can't do something one day and their coworker will tell you something completely different the next. Even when you try and make a list of tips, like I have done below, you will have people say that their experiences or preferred procedures are completely different.
I usually try to follow these basic steps:
1. Don't hand them paperwork they don't ask for and don't volunteer any information they don't ask for. You can bring a bunch of paperwork along but keep it in your hands. In volunteeering too much paperwork or information you might be providing information that will confuse them or create a red flag in their mind.
2. Bring along a couple of moderate quality black and white pictures of the car. This is especially important if you are dealing with a three wheeler or anything unusual. I never take the car to the DMV.
3. Be polite.
4. Register the car immediately when you get it or when it enters the state. The fines and penalties in CA are very high. Trying to explain that a car has been in restoration or non-operation, after the fact, will be futile. All they are interested in is when you bought it and you will be back-charged to that date. If you have spent 3 years getting it restored that is 3 years of penalties and that can mount up quickly.
5. If you are required to get a brake and light inspection don't take the Microcar to an automotive inspection station. They will want to disassemble the brake system on your car and measure the drum and shoe dimensions. Instead take the vehicle to an independent mechanic, scooter or motorcycle shop and get one of their mechanics to sign the Statement of Fact form that was mentioned earlier that the brakes work and the lights work. Have the mechanic sign and stamp the bottom of the form with the shop's rubber stamp.
6. Title services are coming under increasingly scrutiny in CA. The state has gone on the warpath against these services because people have been using them to minimize the sales taxes paid.
7. Find a peace officer that can verify your serial numbers for you on the bill of sale form. Also, the Auto Club offices can deal with basic number verifications.
8. If there is anything funny on the car's serial numbers you will be referred to a local CHP station to have them verify the numbers. You will usually have to make an appointment with the CHP station to get the car inspected. In our area the CHP is backed up for up to 3 months on these inspections. Be sure they give you a permit to operate the vehicle that goes out long enough to allow for a long inspection wait. On the day of the inspection show up in a timely manner with all your paperwork in order. If you are missing anything on the list of documents that they will give you, you'll have to schedule another inspection and start all over. The CHP inspection is not about safety, only about determining the numbers are correct or that you have receipts to prove ownership of the vehicle or its major parts.
9. Realize that the DMV is really just a tax agency. They want their money for your registration and sales tax.
10. Remember that when you think you are done you may not be. The paperwork that the clerk is filling out eventually goes to Sacramento and is looked at all over again. It would not be unsusual for you to get a notice that things were filled out incorrectly or that you owe additional fees. You may have one or more trips back to the DMV to resolve mistakes the clerk made. The maximum number of times I have experienced so far is the first appointment was followed by two redo sessions - each time they found additional fees they wanted.
A process I had been dreading is finally over.
I bought an Isetta project car on a bill of sale so I new it would be no picnic. I armed myself with the Bill of sale and a sheaf of paperwork I downloaded from the website, drug the chassis, motor and shell ont a trailer and hauled Isetta down to the local DMV.
When I get there I am directed to the verification line. Wait, wait, wait and finally one of the people come over and tell me they can not verify it until it has the wheels on and the glass in. I run by the house and add wheels and throw the glass inside and go to a different DMV office. NO it has to be driveable. Arrrggg Thats not what Iwas told.
I gpo inside and ask how to gett eh paperwork started. (I learned on a previous incursion that they fine you if you do not register the car within 30 days of bringing it into California. Where is the title she asks. Got none I say, Need one she says. Don't got one but got a bill of sale. Back and forth like this for a while and I say how do you register those model T's they drag in out of barns. Oh! The clerk in an adjacent cube says you use a X003 "Record not found" (MAGIC WORDS for future reference) Click click clickety click, that will be $66.00 please. That got my toe in the door so to speak. She created an incomplete registration and all I had to do was bring in the assembled car for verification fill out a few forms and I was good ot go.
After a fun filled but frantic weekend in Golden CO I was ready to see how things went. I trailered the car up to the first DMV office and got the same guy I had when I drug the hulk in. He was amazed and quickly checked off the form until he got to body type..................... No check box for one door......................Conferences required...............Back he comes, signs the form and I am good to go. I then walk into the office to finish the registration and it looks like a 3rd world refugee camp. All that was missing was the chickens. Where did all these people come from on a Monday morning! I bailed deciding to come back later. I stopped by the DMV this afternoon and braved the drowds armed with a book and settled down to wait. I lucked out and got the only cheerful DMV clerk on the planet and for an additional $20 I had my paperwork and a nice shiny set of license plates.
The moral of the story is it may take a little patience and some fancy footwork but it is possible to get a car registered in California.
Get a good Bill of Sale,
Fill out the forms in advance.
If the car is not ready to drive away don't bother taking it in for VIN verification but do go in and get the registration started within 30 days to avoid fines (which really add up)
Be gently pushy but courteous (take silly photos of the car to get them laughing)
If you know the license plate number of a similar car or have one registered take that so they can use it as a template for your registration.
Know to mention they have the option of record not found otherwise it can stop you in your tracks.
Good Luck
Next post
Dude! Next time call me. You fill out a statement of facts, saying you've owned the car for 20 years and can't find the pink slip. Works every time. I even stamped my own numbers on my 54 Chevy to match the engine number and I got the pink slip.
Next Post
Gotta agree with Greg 100% about the value of a Statement of Fact. Best may be to have the seller fill out, or at least sign the statement of facts. Mainly they want someone to say that the vehicle was never on the road when it wasn't registered. The form must be downloadable from the DMV site so whoever does the Bill of Sale should be asked to do the statement of fact as well.
That and the Records Not Found are key elements to smoothosity.
Imagine this; When I drove the Oregon titled and registered (current at the time) 2CV in to the Verification line at the then open Mountain View DMV the inspector spontaneously told me that the car didn't need to get smogged in CA. Forget if he was saying it due to the engine size or the year, but we had a nice chat and it turned out he only knew one of the two reasons. Nice guy.
This was matched by a nice woman when I went in to register a Citroen DS21 wagon that had been unregistered for 18 years, donated to a charity without any title or registration paperwork, then passed through about 4 other charities before I paid $500 for it. Each charity passage generated more paperwork, all pink carbon copies, but nothing was ever submitted to the DMV. I carefully piled all the paperwork in chronological order and submitted it and the Bill of sale and statement of facts and VIN verification (that was when the Police would still come out to your house to verify) to the clerk. She went through everything and then removed the top and bottom pink forms, handed all the intervening forms back to me and quietly said " you REALLY want to loose all of these and only have the other two." I thanked her, folded the bad boys and stuffed them in my pocket. other than the fact that the engine was frozen solid as one cylinder had filled with coolant years earlier and then crystallized and corroded all sorts of things, thinks went pretty smoothly.
As Mark so accurately pointed out you may need to try with more than one clerk and maybe even at another DMV but somewhere out there is a DMV clerk who is likely to take care of it for you
Next post
A few comments:
First, if you have a challenging situation it may be best to wait until the lack of a California
budget is solved. Reports are that some DMV employees are quite upset about being in the middle of the budget battle. It might be better to wait with a challenging situation, but do what you can to avoid late fees
Second, the alleged requirements that the vehicle have wheels or glass, etc. apparently is not part of the law and many private VIN verifiers will not be sticky. Also, I understand that some local police departments will do VIN verifications. Some of the cities charge a fee.
Third, most states have a bonding approach to obtaining a title when there are missing documents, but California also has a procedure for vehicles worth less than $5000. I do not know too much about it.
Fourth, a certificate of non operation will not excuse the non-registration of a vehicle unless the vehicle qualifies as an antique or historical vehicle. Many DMV people do not know that a certificate of non-operation works for these vehicles. (For ordinary vehicles, the only away to avoid the fees is a certificate of planned non-operation given ahead of time.)
Next post
Here is the link to the group on California titling and licensing:
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/CADMVtaxes/
The sad reality is that the success at the California DMV office often is a chance situation. They are geared to normal transactions and when you throw them a curve like a specially constructed vehicle, an older car or a three wheeled car they don't even know their own regulations. You may run into someone that tells you that you can't do something one day and their coworker will tell you something completely different the next. Even when you try and make a list of tips, like I have done below, you will have people say that their experiences or preferred procedures are completely different.
I usually try to follow these basic steps:
1. Don't hand them paperwork they don't ask for and don't volunteer any information they don't ask for. You can bring a bunch of paperwork along but keep it in your hands. In volunteeering too much paperwork or information you might be providing information that will confuse them or create a red flag in their mind.
2. Bring along a couple of moderate quality black and white pictures of the car. This is especially important if you are dealing with a three wheeler or anything unusual. I never take the car to the DMV.
3. Be polite.
4. Register the car immediately when you get it or when it enters the state. The fines and penalties in CA are very high. Trying to explain that a car has been in restoration or non-operation, after the fact, will be futile. All they are interested in is when you bought it and you will be back-charged to that date. If you have spent 3 years getting it restored that is 3 years of penalties and that can mount up quickly.
5. If you are required to get a brake and light inspection don't take the Microcar to an automotive inspection station. They will want to disassemble the brake system on your car and measure the drum and shoe dimensions. Instead take the vehicle to an independent mechanic, scooter or motorcycle shop and get one of their mechanics to sign the Statement of Fact form that was mentioned earlier that the brakes work and the lights work. Have the mechanic sign and stamp the bottom of the form with the shop's rubber stamp.
6. Title services are coming under increasingly scrutiny in CA. The state has gone on the warpath against these services because people have been using them to minimize the sales taxes paid.
7. Find a peace officer that can verify your serial numbers for you on the bill of sale form. Also, the Auto Club offices can deal with basic number verifications.
8. If there is anything funny on the car's serial numbers you will be referred to a local CHP station to have them verify the numbers. You will usually have to make an appointment with the CHP station to get the car inspected. In our area the CHP is backed up for up to 3 months on these inspections. Be sure they give you a permit to operate the vehicle that goes out long enough to allow for a long inspection wait. On the day of the inspection show up in a timely manner with all your paperwork in order. If you are missing anything on the list of documents that they will give you, you'll have to schedule another inspection and start all over. The CHP inspection is not about safety, only about determining the numbers are correct or that you have receipts to prove ownership of the vehicle or its major parts.
9. Realize that the DMV is really just a tax agency. They want their money for your registration and sales tax.
10. Remember that when you think you are done you may not be. The paperwork that the clerk is filling out eventually goes to Sacramento and is looked at all over again. It would not be unsusual for you to get a notice that things were filled out incorrectly or that you owe additional fees. You may have one or more trips back to the DMV to resolve mistakes the clerk made. The maximum number of times I have experienced so far is the first appointment was followed by two redo sessions - each time they found additional fees they wanted.
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