The Expert Podcast

So, if you are in the state of Florida and you have a vehicle that has a title problem, what do you do? Fortunately for you, in the State of Florida, you have two very specific processes that are provided for you by the Florida DMV and/or your local County to be able to get a title for a vehicle, a legal title certificate, without having the old title, which is very, very crucial. Many times people buy cars on Craigslist or Facebook or auctions and they don't get a title, and you go to DMV and you say, "Hey, I want to get a title for my car," and they basically tell you you can't get one without the old title.

Now remember, a title is a legal government document issued only by a government agency. You can't buy one from a company, you can't download one from the internet, it comes from an agency in every state, normally called Department of Motor Vehicles, Department of Transportation, they have different names for it.

So what happens if you don't have the right paperwork? Well, fortunately, Florida provides you with two different options. One is what's called a bonded title, and you can see on the screen right now that's what this process is. It's a system where you sign some affidavits, you swear that you bought the vehicle fair and square, you have to purchase a surety bond from a Bonding Company. It's normally going to cost you about 100 bucks for a surety bond. If you want to get an exact quote, you can go to a website called probonds.com. You can select what state, you can select vehicle title surety or vehicle title in the search box, and it'll tell you how much your bond is going to cost. Once you get that, you submit it to the DMV and they issue a title. Now, that title's going to say bonded on it, which may or may not be an issue for you if you're looking to sell it, if you're looking to trade it in, if you're looking to finance it, it might be an obstacle. A bonded title also in Florida, they do not process bonded titles unless the last title was from Florida, so if you bought a car from Georgia or New York or somewhere else, you cannot do a bonded title, plus there are year limitations, can't be too old, can't be too new, so double check all that before you start the Florida bonded process.

What if you can't do the bonded process or if you don't want to do the bonded process? You have another option in Florida. You can also do what's called a declaratory judgment, and what that entails is you file a petition, looks like this, in the county court where you reside that says, "This is an action requesting a declaratory judgment involving the acquisition of a clear title for," and then you put in your information. It's a process of filling out some documents, every county has a different set of forms, this one has happens to be for Palm Beach. You have to do an inspection of the VIN number, you have to do the complaint for the declaratory judgment, and as you can see, there's some steps, step one, step two, step three, and the court is also going to require that you go through this process diligent search for the owner, bill of sale, you have to pay sales tax, you would normally have to do that anyway, but at least it gives you a way to get a title without doing the bonded.

You're not going to have a title, bill a sale by itself does not get you a title. Also, don't fall for any of these fake mechanic's liens or outdated loopholes. They're all going to get enforced by the state. If you try to pull any of these back door fast ones, the state is going to shut you down. They already did shut down the Vermont loophole that existed for a while, as did all the other states, so you want to do it the right way. These are the ways that the government provides for you to get a title when you don't have the right paperwork. It's not that hard of a process, it'll probably only take you a couple hours of filling out forms. We have a title service if you want assistance with doing that, you can check out our website cartitles.com. Also, we have consultation, so if you're not sure if you want to do it yourself or you want to get some advice, you can actually talk live one-on-one with a certified title agent. You'll see a link on our website for that. You can even ask personal private questions, one-on-one conversation questions, they can be answered by email, answered by video recording, or be answered live on a video call.

Getting a title is a little bit tricky, only because you're dealing with a government bureaucracy. It's not like dealing with a company that's trying to help you out, and because there's only one company that does it, the Department of Motor Vehicles, one agency that does it, I should say, you can't go to somebody else if you don't like the way they do business. If you go to the DMV in Florida and want to get a title and it's too hard, you can't say, "I'm going to shop around and go to your competitor," there are no competitors for the DMV. They are the only game in town. So, you can get some help with that, but at the end of the day, the title's going to come from that government agency.

So you have a couple options, you could do the bonded process, you could do the declaratory judgment process. It's not as hard as it seems when you hear declaratory judgment in court, you might be thinking Jack McCoy Law and Order big court case, that's not what it is, it's an administrative process. Either way, as long as you have a legitimate vehicle, it's not stolen, not a salvage, not a parts car, not a car with a bunch of liens on it, you can get a title for it. You probably have to jump through a few hoops, you can get help with that if you want, but be confident that if you have a legitimate vehicle, there's a way for you to get a title and be able to drive that car or sell it or whatever you're going to do with it. If you have questions, reach us on our website cartitles.com.