The Expert Podcast

you may have seen our prior video about five ways to get a car title let's talk about five ways not to get a car title. here's some common ways of getting a title that may be presented to you as a vehicle owner that you might want to try to avoid or check into a little further. first is these online solutions websites where there's a website you call them up or email them and they say yeah give me five hundred Bucks I'll get you a title. well unless that website can tell you exactly how they're going to get the title there's no magic way to get a title that anybody can do that you can do yourself. so a lot of times what websites will do is they'll charge you five hundred Bucks or six hundred bucks or four hundred bucks and they'll try something that's very easy and cheap. they'll try to maybe apply for duplicate title for fifty dollars or try to apply for a bonded title for a hundred dollars. if it works they just keep the difference for making a twenty minute phone call. if it doesn't work they're going to come back to you and say your car doesn't qualify and you violated terms and conditions or there's some conflict with your vehicle vin number and we get to keep your money. if you look at the small print you'll find that's the case. before you go ahead with any of these on line solutions companies make sure you look at their terms and conditions. make sure you look them up where's their addresses is it a a post office box is it somebody just working from home is it somebody that's doing something illegal. the number two thing you wanted not do to get a title is a mechanic's lien. there some companies are body shops or towing companies that will use their towing license to process a mechanic's lien on your car. the way a mechanic's lien works is you're supposed to have a vehicle and be a licensed body shop that was brought to your shop for repairs and somebody signed an invoice saying please fix my car. and then you're supposed to advertise the car for sale in the paper sent notices to the owner and hold an auction. what these companies will do is to falsify documents to sign an affidavit saying this car was brought in or I towed it in and get you a title. you can look up Google search records for people who have been prosecuted for getting a mechanic's lien. remember a mechanic's lien is a legitimate process used by licensed repair facilities to get a title for a car that somebody abandoned at their shop not somebody who just call them up it goes get me titles. look very carefully at that in do your due diligence a lot of people have been prosecuted under the law for getting a mechanic's lien illegally. another thing to avoid is what's called an abandoned title first of all there's really no such thing as an abandoned title if a car abandoned it's supposed to be towed into a impound yard by the police department by towing company and then process accordingly. there's no such thing as finders keepers I got this car I want to keep it an abandoned title is a very specific legal process for a car that the police department tows in and that's not a way to get a title. the fourth thing you want to avoid a very very strongly is what's called title washing. that means if you have a salvage title or certificate of destruction trying to clear that record off the title without going through the right process of getting the car inspected or having the vehicle go through the rebuild process.
title washing something that's offered by some companies online it's actually a crime to wash a title brand off car so you want to avoid that. the last thing that you want to avoid this used to be a lot more popular than is now is signing over your ownership. there some companies online it'll say sign over the car to us we'll get a title in our name and then sign it back to you the problem is you don't know which process is being used to get that title for them. it may be illegal it maybe putting a lien on the car maybe doing something to jeopardize your ownership. there's lots of news stories about people who have signed over ownership to their car to some company and then the company goes out of business or the company gets caught doing something wrong and then they lose their car. so those processes are very risky do your due diligence look into the research for these firms find out who the owners are and make sure that your car is not being jeopardized by using some illegal process to get a title.