The Expert Podcast

…So how do you perform a vehicle title search? It depends on what you're looking for If you're looking for the vehicle prior owner or the owner history, there may be some ways to do it but it's more complicated We'll get back to that in a minute. Salvage title title stamps, even the history of what states the title came from can all be obtained by Carfax Very inexpensive 20 bucks 30 bucks, and Carfax will give it to you. There's a website called the N M V T I S. National motor vehicle title. system it's a government run. organization that will give you some basic information on the title If it's stolen Is it a salvage title? What state it came from It's not going to tell you the owner's names. But it'll give you that information. You can also in some cases, Ask a local law enforcement officer to run the VIN number to give you some basic information All they're going to tell you is if it's stolen or for some reason, there's some hit on the car in the law enforcement database it won't tell you anything about ownership or liens or anything else. Now the day. also will not help you The DMV is prohibited. By law from releasing ownership data to you. There's a national federal law called the DPPA driver's privacy protection act. It means that any drivers or owners information is protected just like a credit report or bank account. You wouldn't want somebody looking up your home address just because they have your license plate number or read the VIN number off your car in a parking lot. That's a safety and privacy. restriction to protect people's privacy and their and their whereabouts So you don't have somebody knocking on your door just cause they didn't like the way you drove in traffic. To do a title search. You have to have a permissible use under the DPPA. Certain things like protecting from fraud If you're an insurance company looking for an owner, if you're a manufacturer doing recalls there are certain. allowable uses of that information either way a title search is going to cost some money and you have to make sure you are allowed to perform that search under the driver's privacy protection act.