The Expert Podcast

Here is a cautionary tale for those who wish to try to claim ownership of an abandoned vehicle. A lot of people think that you can just claim a vehicle if it's abandoned or try to get a title for it, but in most states, an abandoned vehicle is not "finders keepers." You don't get to automatically keep it. Here's a person who did just that and ended up getting arrested. The person discovered abandoned motor vehicles—these were snowmobiles— in a forest in the middle of the woods. They saw them there for many weeks, I think really more than a month. They decided, "Well, they must be abandoned, so I’m going to get them," and started to apply for title paperwork on these snowmobiles. They were told by the DMV, "Look, you can’t just take ownership of these without a title." They insisted, "Well, they're abandoned, and I want to get the titles," and pushed this pursuit. They were told, "No, you can’t do it." Well, they ended up getting arrested because these vehicles did not belong to them.

Title to a vehicle is different than finding a quarter on the ground and putting it in your pocket. A motor vehicle is considered to be a titled asset, which means that the ownership is tied to the name that's in the title record. It's not about who’s in possession of the vehicle, who has the VIN number, or who is claiming it. It's whoever's name is on that title record—that’s who owns it. It doesn’t matter where the vehicle is, who has possession of it; the owner is the person whose name is in the title record held by the titling authority, usually the DMV in most states. So, if you’re trying to claim a vehicle that’s owned by someone else and you don’t have any paperwork showing that you own it, it’s not going to work. In fact, if you push it too far, you could end up getting arrested, like this person did. Most of the time, people who try to get a title for an abandoned vehicle actually know where it came from—they bought it on Craigslist with a bill of sale and somehow lost the paperwork. That’s fine, you can get a title for that, but claiming a vehicle you find on the side of the road or in a parking lot is not as simple as just claiming an abandoned vehicle.

You’ll see in a lot of webpages, forums, urban legends, or old wives' tales, people say you can just file for an abandoned vehicle, but that’s not how it works. If you truly do file an abandoned claim on a vehicle, you have to surrender that vehicle to the state and have them auction it off. If you're saying the vehicle is abandoned, that means you're abandoning it too—everybody's abandoning it. It becomes a free-for-all where nobody owns it. If nobody wants it, when it’s auctioned off, the money goes to the state, and they’ll try to find the owner. They’ll track them down, do a skip trace, and send them the money. You can bid on it at the auction, but you don’t get it for free. Now, if you're a legitimate repair shop that had a vehicle turned in and nobody paid the bill, that’s not an abandoned vehicle—that’s a mechanic’s lien, and that’s different. If you’re somebody who bought a vehicle but didn’t get a title and nobody is helping you, that’s not an abandoned vehicle—that’s a title recovery.

So, be very careful, because people who try to file for an abandoned vehicle either end up getting arrested, or they have to turn over the vehicle to the state for them to auction it off. Remember, we’re not attorneys giving you legal advice, but this is an example of where trying to claim an abandoned vehicle goes bad. How do we know this? You know, we get 1000 calls a day, and usually two or three hundred of them are from people who say, "I want to file for an abandoned vehicle." The more we talk to these clients, most of them are not really dealing with an abandoned vehicle. It’s not like a car just showed up in their driveway, and they didn’t know where it came from. It’s usually that they bought it, their friend left it there, or they know more about it than just a random vehicle showing up out of nowhere. But occasionally, it’s somebody who says, "Look, I found this vehicle in the parking lot of this hotel or my apartment complex, or I saw it sitting in a field, and I just want to claim it." You can’t do that. You have to go through certain channels.

There is something called a lien title, a civil lien title, which you may be able to do. That’s not an abandoned vehicle; it's a civil lien, where you can file a court order petition against the vehicle. But it's not just an automatic, "I get to keep it because I found it somewhere." You don’t know, maybe that person is deceased, and their family is supposed to get it. Maybe they’re on vacation, deployed in the military, or in prison. And when they get out, they might be looking for it. Just because somebody sold it to you doesn’t mean you get to keep it either. If somebody’s in jail and their girlfriend sold them, sold you the vehicle, if that person comes out of jail looking for their car, the girlfriend’s not allowed to sell it just because they’re in jail. Just because somebody’s in jail doesn’t mean they lose their property. When somebody dies, it doesn’t mean that it automatically gets sold. There’s a process that has to be followed.

So before you jump to the conclusion that a vehicle is abandoned, remember this cautionary tale: here’s a guy who was arrested because he tried to claim a vehicle he found in the woods. Make sure you use the right process. There are many better ways to get a title than saying it’s abandoned. As soon as you use that word, the vehicle goes to the state, and they take care of it.