The Expert Podcast

So what if you've purchased a barn find, a race car, or an old track car and it didn't come with the title? Maybe the car has been off the road for a long time, and there's been no title for it. How do you resolve that?

Well, the good news is a title. Even though it's a legal government document issued by a government agency, there's ways of getting one if you didn't get one from the seller. As long as the vehicle is not reported stolen or has some other block on the title that keeps it from being transferred, then you'll be in good shape.

You may have to jump through a few hoops, right? Because normally, the DMV is only allowed to give you a new title if you bring them the old title. And if you don't have the old title, you're out of luck. But a lot of times these cars come out of barns, garages, fields, or used to be race cars or track cars, and the car has been out of the system for so long that nobody knows any history about it. Or maybe the VIN number is not 17 digits.

If that's the case, first you want to look at filing for a bonded title. Most states allow for bonded titles. That's a process where, instead of having the old title to give the DMV, you get a surety bond. You sign some affidavit saying, "Hey, I bought this car fair and square. Here's my bill of sale." Boom! They give you a bonded title. It's not an abandoned title; remember, there's a difference. We'll talk about abandoned here in a minute. It's a bonded title, and you can find more information on our website.

A bonded title is a really good option. The problem is that there are some states that don't do it. So if you live in one of the 12 states and they're listed on our website, you can't do it. But you may have other options that you could use instead.

Now, one thing about bonded titles: a lot of times people will get hung up on the fact that they'll read something that you have to pay one and a half times the value of the vehicle. That's not true. It just means that the surety bond that you get for that vehicle has to be valued at one and a half times. For example, if you have a $5,000 vehicle, you have to get a surety bond for $7,500, one and a half times the $5,000. But that bond is probably only going to cost you $80 or $90, right? Surety bonds don't cost a lot of money. Usually, it's about 1% of the value. So a $10,000 vehicle costs $100, a $20,000 vehicle costs $200, or something like that. So that's not a big deal. Until you start getting like $50, $60, or $70,000 vehicles. Now, you may have some more difficulty getting that bond, but on normal used cars, you'll be just fine.

If, for some reason, you can't do a bonded title because of your state or requirements, you can also do a court-order title. Now hold on before you start freaking out about court. I don't want to go to court. This is not like a big Law and Order Jack McCoy-type court case. It's all administrative. You filed some documents with the court. They verify that everything in the vehicle is legitimate. It's not stolen; there are no liens, no salvage, no back taxes, and they sign a judgment of ownership. So you can bring that to the DMV, slap it on the counter, and they will give you a title.

Now, here's where the problem comes in. Sometimes on barn finds or on track cars, the VIN number. If the vehicle does not have a VIN number, now let me back up before anybody makes a lot of comments. I know that in VIN, the n stands for number. So when you say VIN number, you're really saying vehicle identification number. But most people just say the VIN number. So let's just use that as a term. If the vehicle does not have a VIN number because it's been removed, altered, damaged, rusted out, or that part is gone, now you're going to have a problem. Because unless you have a valid VIN number that's on the vehicle, you can't even start getting a title. You first have to get a VIN number assigned by the government for that vehicle.

Also, don't think your solution is, "Well, I'll just get a VIN number from another vehicle, cut it off, and put it on mine." You can't do that. And if you try to get a title at some point, that vehicle will have to get an inspection or a VIN verification. And if they see that the VIN number has been moved from another vehicle, which they can tell they're not stupid about, they'll reject the whole thing. VIN tampering is actually considered a federal crime. It's a federal felony. And VIN tampering means taking a VIN from one vehicle and putting it on another. You can't do that.

And you don't have to, though; there's ways you can solve it without doing that. And sometimes people get into trouble accidentally, not knowing you're not supposed to change VIN numbers. So if you have a track car, especially, a lot of times cars that are just race cars don't have a VIN number because you don't need it because it's not on the road. But if you want to try to take that track car and repurpose it for road use, then you have to get a VIN number assigned, and there's a process for that.

If you have additional questions about getting a title in those scenarios, check out our website. We have all the options, and we will give you all the instructions step by step. We even have title consultation if you need more help or title services if you want to have us do it for you. Feel free to reach out to our website if you have any questions. We'll be glad to help. Bye for now.