The Expert Podcast

So, what is a court order title and the process of trying to solve your title problem? You may have heard this term come up. It may have even been said to you by the Department of Motor Vehicles. Look, if you go to the DMV trying to get a title and you don't have the right paperwork, they're going to tell you that either a) they just can't give you one or b) they might tell you about other options. In some states, one of the options is a bonded title. And that's something we've talked about in other videos.

But in every state, every county, you can do a court ordered title. So what is it? Well, it's a process where when the DMV is unable to give you a title because of the fact that your paperwork is deficient, and when I say deficient, I mean you don't have a title. So unless you have the last legal title signed over to you on the back from the last owner, the DMV is not allowed to give you a title. No DMV in the country can give you a title with just a bill of sale. A bill of sale is just a receipt of somebody that took your money. It doesn't mean any kind of ownership.

So a bill of sale, even though it sounds official, is not sufficient for a government agency to hand you a title. So, a lot of times they'll tell you, look, if you want us to help you get a court order title—now sometimes this is called a declaratory judgment or a magistrate title or some other term—but it's a process, a legal process offered by the government. Nothing illegitimate about it. It's perfectly good. In fact, many times the DMV will tell you to do this if they can't help you.

So, what are the details? Well, here's a brief overview. It's so popular now, so common that it has an official reference in Google AI. Google AI overview says a court-ordered title is a legal document—there you go—a declaratory judgment issued by a court that directs a DMV or similar agency to issue a title to a person. So, if the DMV can't give you a title because of their own rules, you can override that by getting a declaratory judgment from the court. The order is requested when a title is missing, damaged, or when there's a dispute over ownership. It's why it's used.

Here’s some more details. When a court order title might be necessary: missing or damaged title. If you bought a car and didn't get a title when you purchased it, this is the perfect scenario to use a court order title. It can facilitate the issuance. Think about that word—facilitate. If you've been getting the runaround from DMV or they're not giving you straight answers or they're giving you a hard time, it'll facilitate it. It'll solve the problem.

If there's any legal disputes—this is usually not the case—but if there's a divorce or legal dispute where ownership is contested, a court order can resolve the ownership. This is a lot of times the case when there is a lien on the vehicle and there's a dispute over whether the lien is owed or is in somebody else's name. It can take a lien off a vehicle as well. Unresolved title issues, discrepancy, or issue with the existing title. If it cannot be resolved directly with the DMV, court order can override that.

Vehicle with no current title. A vehicle might be acquired without a title. Court order can be obtained to rectify the situation. That's 99% of what people do.

What are the steps? Now, keep in mind that every county is a little different. This is done through the county court. It's not done through the state. So, there's 3,611 counties in the country. Every county's going to do it different. First, you have to start with a petition. Petition outlining the reason you need a court order. You have to give supporting documents. Many times that would be a declaration of interest, an affidavit of facts, other documents.

Now, here's the problem. You can't just walk into the court and say, "Hey, I want to do a court order title. What do I do?" First of all, they can't give you instructions. Second of all, there are no pre-made forms that the court has for you just to fill in. And that is the biggest problem for a lot of people. What do you do? First of all, there's no instruction. Second of all, there's no preconstructed forms. Why is that? Well, think about it. That court is going to hear a thousand cases in a month. Every case is going to be different.

One is my neighbor's dog bit me. The other one is the guy down the street built the fence too high. The next one is a divorce. The next one is a small claims. Right? If they had a form for every possible type of case that would come across their desk, there would be thousands of forms. They don't have that. You have to create the document from scratch about what you want to have happen. See what it says right here? Outlining the reason you need a court order. So, you have to come up with that language.

So this is an example of a court order title package. These are the documents that are created for the court. Again, this is not something the court has a form for. You have to type it up from scratch. Now, our website, cartitles.com, will give you some suggestions on how to do it. Every county is a little different, but it'll give you some basic instructions. We also have some videos on our channel that will give you more details on it.

Supporting documents. You might need a bill of sale for that—usually not. Photos of the vehicle—usually not. Usually, they do want a picture of the VIN number proving you're in possession of the vehicle. It says in some cases you have to go to court. We almost never hear that. We do thousands of these on a regular basis. We almost never hear that the court wants you to be in court.

Remember, this is an administrative process. This is not like what you see on Law and Order where Jack McCoy is doing this big court case with a hearing and lawyers and juries. This is not that kind of case. It's an administrative case where the court, the judge will look at the records, make sure the vehicle is not stolen, make sure it's not a salvage or parts vehicle, and they give you step four: a court order directing the DMV to issue a title.

Once you get that, then you have to file it with the DMV. And that's the other side of this package. You see, here's the court paperwork, here's the DMV paperwork. So, you get this first, then you file it with the DMV.

Key documents and forms. You're going to need the petition or complaint. You're going to need an affidavit of facts. You're going to need a declaration of interest and an application for title. We recommend that when you send the information to the court—notice I said send, not bring—you don't want to bring this package to the court. We'll talk about that in another video or our website will explain why you don't want to bring it there.

When you send it to the court, put the title application in that package, too. Even though that's for the DMV. Sometimes the court will do you a favor and just file it directly with the DMV. Sometimes they won't. They'll just send it back to you signed and then you have to file it. But at least if you give them the opportunity, they might do that for you.

So hopefully that gives you some information on the court order title process. There's a whole lot more details on our website, cartitles.com. The link is below. It'll walk you through the process step by step. Of course, we also have a title service. If you want to have us prepare the documents at your request, we can do that as well.

But don't despair. As long as you have a legitimate vehicle, it's not stolen. You're not trying to take somebody else's vehicle. This is a way to kind of go over and above the DMV to get a title in your name when the DMV has been giving you the runaround. 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.