The Expert Podcast

So how do you transfer a title to a salvage vehicle? Well, here's the good news and the bad news. If you have a salvage title vehicle and you actually have the salvage title, you have the document. It's a pretty straightforward process, just like any other title transfer. The seller of the vehicle, which is normally going to be an insurance company, and you bought it through Copart or IAA, they will have signed it over to you on the back as the new owner. You apply for a new title just like you would with any other type of title with a clean title. The only difference with salvage is that a vehicle has to be inspected before a new title is issued. So they're going to arrange for you to have an inspection done on the vehicle to make sure it's safe for the road. Make sure everything's good because a salvage title, by definition, is one that had an insurance claim paid. Now the insurance claim may not have been for any kind of significant damage; it may have been a flood; it may have been a theft that's been recovered. But they're going to want to make sure that they double-check that vehicle to make sure there's nothing about the insurance claim that makes it unsafe for the road.

If you've had to make repairs to the vehicle, make sure you keep your receipts, because many times they're going to verify your repairs with receipts for parts at the time of the inspection. But it's pretty straightforward; you don't have to do anything different with the title; you just have to get that inspection done. Now if you don't have the title, meaning that you bought it from Copart or some seller that didn't give you the title, now it's going to be more difficult because normally, in order to apply for a title and get an inspection, you have to have the old title. If you don't have that old title, it could throw a monkey wrench around the gears. So in that case, you may have to get a court order; you may have to go back to the prior owner; you may have to contact the insurance company to get a duplicate. Our website will give you instructions on how to do that. We also have title services that may help with that if you want some assistance.

But a salvage title transfer is like any other title transfer except they're going to verify the condition of the vehicle by way of an inspection to make sure that nothing about that insurance claim makes it unsafe for the road. And they're pretty picky about those inspections. They want to make sure that nobody's trying to put an unsafe car on the road, and it may look to you like it's in good shape, but they want to verify it with their own eyes.