The Expert Podcast

so what do you do if a car dealer won't give you your car title. if you give a dealer good money for a vehicle they're supposed to hand you a legal title having the keys in the vehicles only half the battle you need a legal title certificate. put your comments below this is happened to you and what your thoughts and questions are about the subject. so when you buy a car from a licensed automotive dealership and in every state being a car dealer is a license activity you're required to get a license from the government from the state DMV department of licensing whoever issues those licenses in your state has to give a license to a dealer before they can do business. so if you buy a car from a dealer they give the keys to give the car to give you paperwork bill of sale but one of the things they have to give you is a title. they don't give you the title then they didn't finish the transaction the job's not done they have to give you title. if they haven't given you one they either have to give your money back or fix the problem. how often does this happen well you know we get seven or eight hundred calls a day usually ten percent twenty percent of them your hundred these calls are people that bought a car from a dealer and never got the title. why does this happen well sometimes a dealer lost it and they have to replace it which is not as easy as it thinks as you think. sometimes a dealer loses the title and they have problems getting it. might be even more of a problem for dealer to get a title than is for you as a private citizen to get a title. that could be a problem. number two it could be the dealer never had the title. maybe they bought it from an auction and never got the title. sometimes the issue is the dealer mailed the title but it got lost in the mail or maybe you lost it afterwards. another scenario comes up quite a bit is if there's a lien on the vehicle. you finance the car when you buy from a dealer you pay the last payment and now the lien holders out of business or the car dealers out of business what do you do then. well in all those scenarios there's a solution if the dealer or the lien holders out of business there is a designated registered agent for that business or designated assignee for that business they can sign over title paperwork. you have to find out who it is and do some research but that's who does it and you can find out more information about that on our website. if the dealer is still open or just flat out refusing then you need to file a complaint with the dealer licensing board. that's the division of government that issues licenses for that state's dealerships. maybe the department motor vehicles and maybe some other agency they're given the authority to do enforcement on that dealer to make them give titles and if they don't they can have sanctions. they can have license problems that have to pay fines. how often is this a factor well look right now look at carvana. carvana is a national automotive dealership chain they're listed on there on the stock market they're national you know publicly traded company. and they're having title problems are not giving titles to people they have paid good money for a car. to the extent that some states are shutting down their license. it's a serious problems their stock is down ninety percent partially because of this problem. so it can happen to any dealership big or small if you are a consumer who's rightfully purchased a car and paid for properly you're owed a title from that licensed dealer. and the agency that regulates dealers might have a restitution fund that you might be able to get compensation from you might be able to get the agency to force the dealer to give you a title or court order title. but you can find all that information on our website at car titles dot com more about how dealers are required to give titles and what the process is if you're defrauded by dealer or lien holder that doesn't give you title. again put your messages below let us know what you think you'll see on the next video.