The Expert Podcast

Welcome to another episode of Car Titles. Today, we're going to talk about vehicle inspections. This is a very common subject for our callers, our clients, our customers, and even viewers of this channel.
When and why is an inspection of the vehicle required, or a VIN inspection? Sometimes there's a separate type of inspection, and that's a VIN number inspection. When is it required? When can you avoid doing it? When can you get out of having to do it? And what is the purpose of it? Also, a full vehicle inspection, which is more of a vehicle condition or safety inspection, is required.

We're going to take a look at a couple of different states. One of the ones I know everybody's interested in is Vermont. Do I need a VIN inspection for Vermont? And that loophole is very common, but also on general title transfers when you need an inspection. Right on the screen, you'll see there's an example here. It happens to be from the state of Oregon, but this is very similar to many states, and it talks about the vehicle identification number inspection.

What is it? It's a physical examination of the vehicle to verify the VIN on your vehicle matches the title or ownership. This is important. The reason that most states require a VIN inspection is because when they issue that title, a title is a legal government document. It's not something you can buy from a company; you can print it on the internet. It comes from the government. They want to make sure that the serial number, the VIN number on that document, matches the legal stamped plate on the vehicle because if they give you a title and it has the wrong VIN number on it, well, then it's not going to be applicable to that vehicle, even if it's a typo.

We have a lot of cases we work on for clients where it's correcting an improper VIN number that's been issued with a typo. Maybe two letters are transposed, or it's missing a letter or a number. So the purpose of a VIN inspection, in most cases, is just to make sure they're not wasting their time printing a legal document that's for the wrong vehicle.

Who can do a VIN inspection? Well, in Oregon, it can be done by the DMV, a licensed dealer, or a DEQ inspector. But this is only if it's an emissions test. So for the most part, it's somebody who's official. You can't just have Joe Schmo verify your VIN. Some states allow notaries to do it, like Pennsylvania does. In some states, you may have to have a law enforcement agent do it.

When must you do it? Well, in Oregon, it tells you it must be done for out-of-state vehicles that are coming into the state for the first time, titled for the first time, as assembled or constructed vehicles, totaled vehicles, or salvage title vehicles. So what that means is that you may not need it if the title was last issued in your state and the new title comes from the same state. They already know that VIN number. It's in their system right there. There's nothing unusual about it. You don't normally have to get it in every case. Sometimes certain types of titles have to have a VIN inspection, like a bonded title or some type of magistrate title. It doesn't have to be done all the time.

If you believe that your VIN inspection is required, what we recommend doing is, if it's easy to get done, if it's convenient and simple, just go ahead and do it, knock it out, and don't worry about it. If it's going to be inconvenient, submit the file without the VIN inspection. Many times, if everything is good with the documents, if they're typed and not handwritten, if all the forms are in order, and if everything is completely accurate and easy to read, the system at the DMV will scan the documents and not reject them for not having a VIN inspection. Now if it's handwritten, messy, or something's missing, it gets kicked out; it's for a manual review, and now it's required. Right? So don't do yourself a favor; make it easy, and make the documents very easy to read. Type them up, print the letters, and don't handwrite them. Make sure you have all the items on the checklist printed properly, and many times you can avoid a VIN inspection.

What about a physical inspection? Well, that's a similar scenario where you may actually be required to do a physical inspection. A lot of times the same trigger scenarios come up, where if it comes from out of state, if the vehicle was previously salvaged, or if there is an insurance claim, they may require a physical inspection. Look, they want to make sure the vehicle is safe for the road, right? And they don't want vehicles on the road that are going to crash; the brakes are bad, there are no airbags, and parts are hanging off. So they want to see the vehicle. It's inconvenient, it's annoying, but they're doing it for the safety of the driving public.

They also want to make sure that the vehicle is complete. A lot of times people will try to register a vehicle that doesn't have all the parts on it if they've fixed it up or reconstructed it, or, you know, if it's a classic car, you know, if you've done some kind of restoration project.

Now here's the big question: What about Vermont? Many, many people with title deficiencies try to use the Vermont loophole process with a bill of sale to get a title. Do you need a VIN verification? Well, technically, their process requires a VIN inspection; VT010 is the form number, and according to their statutes, it's required every time you get a Vermont registration for an out-of-state vehicle. VIN inspection, period, end of story.

However, we talked to Vermont on a regular basis, 40–50 times a day. They tell us all the time that if they receive a file where the documents are printed, typed, and not handwritten, everything is correct, all the spaces are filled in, they have a bill of sale, it's signed properly, the fees are there, it goes into their automated system, and as of right now, they'll more than likely process it without a VIN verification. Now at any given time they could pull one out and flag it and say, "Hey, you need a VIN verification." But if it's presented to them properly, you know, they've told us flat out, look, we can't swear to this and we can't tell you 100%, but it's going to go through without a VIN verification. Now, that could change at any moment. This all started with COVID, where they didn't want to have people interact with law enforcement to get these VIN verifications, so they waived it, and what they found is that when they waived, it didn't really create any problems for them, so they kept that waiver, and even though it's technically a temporary COVID waiver, it's still grandfathered in. So if you're doing the Vermont process, we advise the same thing. If it's easy to get a VIN verification, just get that VT010 form signed, and you're good to go. If it's not easy or convenient, just make sure your forms are typed, everything is neat, clear, and clean, everything's correct, send it to them, and more than likely, it'll fly right through without the VIN verification.