The Expert Podcast

So you've realized that the only or best solution to your vehicle title problem is to do a court-ordered title or a magistrate title, sometimes called a civil lien. How does that work? What do you get? What do you receive if we do the process for you? Well, to give a little insight, this question comes up a lot when you place an order for a court-ordered title document package.

What comes in the mail? We send it certified. We send it priority mail so you get it in two business days. You get this folder, and it's got a package of documents in three categories. You've got the left side, the right side, and you have two sections on the right side—one with a paperclip, one loose. We'll go into these here in a minute, but the first thing that happens when you place your order is you will get a confirmation email that says your order has been received and is in process. That happens within a few minutes.

Usually, about an hour or two later, you'll get another email that says, "Hey, your documents are almost complete. Take a look at the screen to make sure that your name is spelled right, the VIN number is correct." It's a quality control check to make sure that you look at everything one more time to confirm there are no typos and that the right address is on there. We want you to look at that because right after you verify that and authorize the printing, we will print this package of paperwork.

Then, what'll happen is, usually an hour or two later, you'll get another email that says, "Hey, here's your tracking number." It'll be USPS priority mail, two-business-day shipping. It says, "Here's your tracking number; you can track it going out to you." We also track it, and when we see that that package has arrived to you, one of our operations department staff will contact you by phone. They will call you and say, "Hey, did you get the package? Do you have any questions?"

It's pretty straightforward. Basically, what happens is each one of these documents has a checklist, and it starts with a place for you to sign because most of it will already be filled in. All these documents are not blank; they're filled in with all your information. But the different agencies need to have your signature, so we put little arrow stickers where you have to sign, and we give you an envelope to mail it to.

We give you the envelope to mail it to the magistrate, the DMV, and all the different places, maybe lien holders. We provide all that, and there's a checklist of when to send them and when to sign them. For example, as a courtesy, we normally will send out a prior owner request to have the prior owner sign over titles to make it easier, so you don't have to go to court. We also do the lien release request. All of the steps of that are located inside the package.

In addition, we also will run a vehicle history, and that vehicle history will have a notification to where, if you want to get the official vehicle history from the government agency sent to you directly (because if for some reason it's requested by the magistrate later), you'll already have it. So, we give you all those documents, all the dates and times, and how to check it off.

How long does it normally take? Well, the government agencies that process title documents aren't like FedEx or Amazon. When you buy something, they tell you, "Here's your delivery date; it'll be here on this day." Government agencies don't have a timeline like that; they do it pretty much at their discretion. But for most clients, we see about 12 to 14 business days is the average time it takes.

Now, that's a big wide range to get to that average. Some people get it in a few days, some people get it in a few weeks, but for the most part, it's about 12 to 14 business days to get your title documents. So that's a brief overview of how the court-ordered title process works.

If you have more questions, you can click the link below. We also have a consultation option that you can arrange for a live video call—one-on-one discussion of your title issues with a certified title agent. That's a feature we've added recently for clients that want to dive a little deeper into their title issue, wondering if the court-ordered title is definitely the best way to go.

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 the resolution of your issue.