The Expert Podcast

I know that we are a title company—obviously, our website is cartitles.com—but really, you have to stop buying cars without titles. All the people out there that call us every day—we get hundreds of calls, sometimes over a thousand—are people buying cars without titles. Certainly, in many cases, in fact, most cases, you can actually get a title for a car that you bought without a title. However, there is some percentage of vehicles that are not eligible for a title, and the problem is there's no way of knowing in advance if you're able to get a title.

If you have not already purchased a car and it does not have a title, we never recommend buying a car without a title because there's some chance that you could never get a title. Now, obviously, the first thing that people think of is, "Well, I know it's not stolen." Well, that's only one possible scenario that will keep you from getting a title. There are all kinds of other situations that could block you from getting a title. For example, if there are open liens on it, the lien could hold the title back.

Now, there are some methods you can use to release the lien, and you can see those on our website, cartitles.com. However, those methods are also not 100% effective if the lienholder is adamant about their lien. In fact, about 12 to 15% of the time, you cannot get a lien released, but 85% of the time, you can. Still, that 15% could be a problem for you. What if the car is reported as parts-only or junk? That’s not the same as salvage. It could be that the car is not eligible for a title because some insurance company put a notice in the system that it's not eligible.

What if, at some point, somebody had it and didn’t pay their back taxes or registration, and accrued penalties are blocking the title at the DMV? That could be another problem. In some cases, there are other claims against the car from a prior owner. Maybe it went through probate. Maybe it’s in a will. Again, you won’t know these things until you try to get the title. There’s no database or online search you can do to find this out.

Sure, you can run a Carfax. Carfax, VIN searches, or any of these online, cheap $10 VIN checks will give you some information, but they don’t show liens. They only show stolen vehicles about 60 to 70% of the time accurately. They don’t show other claims. They do show things like salvage, but sometimes it’ll say salvage when really it’s junk. Salvage you can get inspected and on the road, but junk you cannot. So take it with a grain of salt.

CARFAX is definitely a place to start, but it’s certainly not the official record of the government. It’s a third-party database, and it does a pretty good job. At least it’s something. However, even if you look at their own disclaimers in Carfax or VIN searches, they’ll tell you it’s not 100%. You’re always taking a risk if you buy a car without a title.

Our official position is: stop buying cars with no titles unless you’re looking at that money as completely speculative. It’s okay to lose it if you can’t get a title, and it’s like a gamble. But if you already did buy a car without a title, now you have to do something. You can use our website, cartitles.com, for assistance.

If you like this video, be sure to click on a few others on our channel to see if there’s other information that might be helpful to you about this same subject or maybe even other related subjects that could assist you with your resolution of your issue.