The Expert Podcast

Did you ever wonder why it's so hard to get a title for what's called an abandoned vehicle or file for an abandoned vehicle at all? And we've talked many times before on this channel about why it's not good to file for an abandoned vehicle. Most states. Almost all states in fact, Filing for an abandoned vehicle means you're giving away the vehicle. You don't get to keep it. Abandoned vehicles are not finders keepers. It's not where you can just file and get the claim a vehicle because it's abandoned In fact, Most of the time when you used the word abandoned and you filed. paper. The state seizes the vehicle from you and they auction it off after they go through a notification process. And here's why here's a comment. On one of our prior videos from a user who said look, my vehicle has a warning under investigation over an abandoned vehicle. My truck is in front of my property on a public residential street. It has an active sticker. It looks Spire in 2023, the truck moves is simply doesn't move that much because we all work in our home. We order things online. We have our own gym room We pair taxes and business. So here's a person who has their vehicle on the street in front of their house. Somebody obviously saw it and said Hey maybe it's abandoned it Hasn't moved It's been there for a long time. And they filed an abandoned vehicle report. And so they put a sticker on it and that's what the state will do The government will put a sticker on it They'll give it some time They'll notify the owner and they auction it off. Well, that vehicle that you're calling abandoned maybe somebody's vehicle that's on vacation in the military. they don't go out that much It's an extra vehicle now granted you may know. about that vehicle You may know that the person moved out of the apartment and they went overseas or you may know that they they died. You may know more about it. It doesn't matter though The, the things that you know the DMV doesn't know they're not allowed to issue you a title saying you are the owner until they exhaust all of the…investigation. On that process That's why this person says. The vehicles under investigation That's what they do. The government that issues titles department and. vehicles. department of transportation whatever it's called in your state. They will do an investigation before they do anything with an abandoned vehicle They want to make sure that no one wants that vehicle. Not the prior owner not a lien holder not a relative. Not a co-owner, there may be other people involved Well once they go through that investigation, then what they do is they auction it off because the value of that vehicle whatever it's worth that money it belongs to somebody…Once it's auctioned off that money is held. So. of it is used to pay the fees for towing or for auctioning whatever it is, but that money is held in case later somebody comes forward and said Hey that's my car. Right. If it's truly abandoned and nobody wants it then the money actually goes to the state. They get to keep it…Abandoned vehicles are not it's not the wild west where you can just claim something that you see that's on. On 'em. You know unoccupied. Now. If it's a different story than that which it usually is you bought a car or somebody that you know, put on your property or they gave it to you. That's a different story Now you have methods of filing for a title. You can do a court order title or you could do a civil lien…instead of a mechanics lien You can do a civil lien. Check out our website for instructions on doing those but be very careful about using the word abandoned vehicle because. As soon as you do that, it may trigger a requirement that the state seizes it. They do an investigation, then they auction it off And this is the reason why here's a poor person that worries about losing their car. because they don't go anywhere. You know they go door dash or Uber or, you know they have a gym in their house and they don't go anywhere Which a lot of people do that now. This is to protect somebody like this may not be the case in your situation You know that. But. The state doesn't know that So they're not allowed to just hand you over a title. Use one of the other methods than abandoned court order title civil lien, bonded title There's a lot of other things you can do and you can check them out on our website at CarTitles.com.