The Expert Podcast

Okay, 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 that are out there that call us every day—we get hundreds of calls every day, sometimes over a thousand contacts—are people buying cars without titles. And 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.

So 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 that hold the title back.

Now, there are some methods you can use to release the lien, and you can see that on our website, cartitles.com. But those are also not 100% effective. If the lien holder is adamant about their lien, in fact, about 12 to 15% of the time, you cannot get a lien release. But 85% of the time, you can. But 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 a salvage. It could be that the car is not eligible for a title because some insurance company put in a notice on 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, and that's at the DMV blocking the title? 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 and a VIN search, or any of these online, you know, cheap $10 VIN checks will give you some information.

But they don’t show liens; they only show stolen about 60-70% 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 a junk. A salvage car can be inspected and put on the road, but a junk car 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. But even if you look at their own disclaimers in Carfax or any of these online VIN searches, it'll tell you that it's not 100%.

So 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 speculation—you're 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. And now you can use our website, cartitles.com.

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.