Titling a car in Fairfax, Virginia

Recently, I scored an amazingly nice '09 Pontiac Vibe at the local IAAI auction. It was a repo but surprisingly well cared for with 80k miles, a full tank of gas, 4 matching Goodyears with less than 10k miles. Most recent oil change only 7k miles ago which aint perfect but in the world of neglect that repos can be, that's pretty good.
All in total with fees it cost me only $2,533.

I added very good front pads and rotors as well as sourced a remote keyless entry key fob with programming and new knobs for the radio. Dollar wise with me paying tax and temp tag and some other repairs and cleaning I have $3,100 into the car. I have spent the better part of 2.5 days on the car figuring the shopping/buying/retrieving process as one day. Major interior cleaning and brake repair make up the other 1.5 days.

I could easily ask $5k for the car and probably get a quick sale.
My wife has gotten involved and thinks this would be a good car for her highschool age nephew (which it would.) I think i will forgo the possible profit and ask $500 over my cost (which is $200 per day for the 2.5 days I have in the car.) I'll sell it to family for $3,600

The car will be going to my wife's sister's kid in Fairfax, VA. They are visiting this holiday weekend and the car will likely go home with them. My sister-in-law and her husband are "commoners" as in "not car people". I am very certain they have never bought a car that was not bought from a dealership. I have already had to overcome the hurdle of getting the S-i-l to not fear buying this car w/o a dealer warranty. A dealership would charge as much as $7k for this car. You could fix a lot (which it does not need) for the remaining $3.4k (or twice the price!)

Any way...

I will sign over the clean Ohio title to my S-i-l but then what?
I will send them driving home on my still current Ohio temp tag so plating is good to get it home.

Once she gets to Fairfax, where does she go? DMV Office? Title Office?
Is there one near her house which is off Lee Hyw between Stringfellow Rd and Fairfax County Parkway?

How is sales tax handled in VA. Any idea of what she could expect to pay on a $3,600 purchase.
Here in Ohio, I could check "gift" on the title and my family member would not have to pay tax again since I have already paid tax recently. Is there similar in VA?

I misread the title and thought you were asking about car tilting....

Nervermind....

Hey I lived near there. The DMV does have lots of different rules in VA. Your in laws have much more to deal with that you do in OH. So your SiL is not out of line with the worry.

FIRST STEP BEFORE ANYTHING is the required VA Safety check and Emissions check. They need to go to whoever they trust to do their current cars. This is probably the biggest worry of your family.

Second think to know is that the car must be registered to BOTH the VA DMV and the Fairfax County Tax Commissioner.

Third key point is a receipt from you stating it is a GIFT and also writing that on the OH Title. That is a Gift. Used to be accepted.

Then

-----Edit bad link

DMV link

They will need to get the car emissions inspected before they can register it. Since they get their other cars done every two years they should already know how to do this. Also should do safety inspection at the same time but that is not needed before you register.

I think gifting is only parent to kid or kid to parent in VA but I could be wrong.
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/pdf/sut3.pdf
There is a DMV office (titles and plates are all done at the DMV in VA) at fair oaks mall.
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/general/#csc/csc.asp?id=36
In my area the DMV select offices have shorter lines so I try to go to those and there is one in fairfax city.
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/general/#csc/select.asp?id=140
Fill out this form to register/title new car.
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/pdf/vsa17a.pdf
Tax - 4.15% of the NADA trade-in value
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/#sut.asp

+1 the Select offices. They do show online wait time.

The fairfax county registration of the car can happen through the DMV but the last time I did that they screwed it up somehow. So I would register directly with the county.

Within VA, they can purchase a trip permit online and print it out. Car must be insured in advance of the trip and bill of sale must accompany the permit.

https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/#temp_permit.asp

Outside of VA, I'm not sure what you do. At the VA DMV, it is possible to register the car for real for 1 month without getting the emissions inspection first. You'd need the title and bill of sale in-hand to register/title the car and get tags though. You pay sales tax based on purchase price at the DMV when you register.

edit: removed bit about DMV notifying Fairfax DTA regarding county personal property taxes. Apparently they don't do this.

Spec-f'ing-tacular.
GRM delivers. Ask a question get the answer complete with forms! Thanks.

Yes, the gift form says Parent, Spouse, Kid only. In hindsight, Ohio might be the same way.

The select office suggested seems to be very near the kids highschool so that is a great tip.

4.15% of NADA. That's not bad. I paid 6.75 of actual purchase price here or $171.
NADA website gives:
Trade Rough: $2,575
Trade Average: $3,400 x .0415 = $141
Trade Clean: $4,075

Any specific recommendations on safety, emissions testing locations?
The car throws no codes and at 80k on a Toyota engine I would expect fine. I also don't see any safety issues. As noted, front pads/rotors are brand new.
I am subjected to neither test here.

The car has this one flaw, a cracked bumper cover. Would this be tagged as a safety issue?

It had looked worse and was pushed in further when I first looked at the car. I suspect that this was "yard damage". When I looked at the car it also had a lot of the front under tray plastic handing down on the ground. I bought the right plastic fasteners and corrected the under tray.
These cars are moved around the auction yard with giant fork lifts. The day I paid for the car this is how they brought it out of the gate to me. I literally just tucked up the under tray well enough to keep it off the ground and drove the car away.

It is not on the safety inspection list. http://www.vsp.state.va.us/Safety.shtm#InspectionProgram I have a much worse rip in the bumper of one of my miatas that still passed inspection this year.

I don't know anybody offhand in that area for inspections so I would just recommend they go to whoever they get their other cars inspected by (safety every year and emissions every 2 years in that area so they should already have somebody they go to)

What I found in VA is that the inspections seem to follow customer loyalty more than anything. Meaning if your family use X shop then they tend to treat them better for inspection time. If they only went to a dealer then IDK they should try,

Curry

Shell

Both did good work, the Shell was key for roller emissions testing as there was one young guy there at the time also owned an NA Miata like me. Only pre OBD cars need the roller.

Armitage wrote: Later on, Fairfax county will send you a bill in the mail for your personal property tax.

See that automatic contact from Fairfax County part didn't happen for me. So after several months in state, a sheriff deputy ticketed my car for no county sticker. Upon contact with the clerk she said that the DMV is not responsible to let them know, I was.

I guess if I move back to VA as the long range plan suggests, I will have to ask about this more at the DMV.

I don't recall ever having done it, but I'm old and forgetful. Everything on the Internet suggests you're correct and that it is up to the owner to contact Fairfax DTA so I retract my previous statement!

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dta/cartax_faq.htm#12

I live in Fairfax County.

I need to move unregistered cars from time to time and I drive cars around Virginia and West Virginia with no plates and the "trip permit" Armitage linked to. At least one fellow GRM-er has gone interstate with them, and passed muster with various state troopers at rest stops.

If you park your car on private property (like the driveway of a private home) it doesn't matter what state's plates are on it. Law enforcement officers won't mess with it. Gives you time to get around to handling the registration.

It's easier for me to get the insurance, emissions and safety done before I head to the DMV Select, then get title and registration in one fell swoop.

But if for some reason I need to get plates on a new purchase in a hurry -- like, I need to park it on the street in front of my house -- I will just do the insurance, go get the title done and they will give me a temporary registration of at least a month to get the emissions done.

VA requires the emissions before they will give you a "real" registration and plate, but they really don't care about the safety inspection sticker. It's a $40 ticket from law enforcement officers, if they feel like issuing you one, which isn't very often in my experience.

Sure enough, I dove the Vibe this morning and it threw a Oxygen sensor code for downstream. If it were staying here I would clear the code and see how long it would take to resurface.
Instead, I bit the bullet and replaced it today with a quality Denso direct fit replacement. Under $100.

I ran the car through the listed safety inspection and all I needed was a fresh rear wiper, $10. Done.

Two things to add:

didn't see if this was addressed, but make sure the Ohio Title is Notorized (that's a thing in Ohio, but not VA... better/smoother if it's done).

use this Bill of Sale form and they'll sail through easier when registering.

In reply to sleepyhead:

Correct, Notory stamp needed in Ohio. The function of that Notory is to prove that you are the genuine and rightful owner of the vehicle and therefore you have the ability to assign the car to someone else.

Thanks for the Bill of Sale form.
In Ohio, the back of the title is actually a mini bill of sale form saying much of the same things in a condensed version. When selling a car with an Ohio title there are places where the seller has to sign and places the buyer has to sign. The Notory then assures that the seller is "genuine".
I'll add the VA Bill of Sale form too just to make sure, like you said, things sail through smoothly.

Will say down here in richmond a CEL does not mean fail, only light that matters down here is the ABS light, now up in fairfax being so close to DC IDK how strict to the book they are up there.

Good luck with the process!

JtspellS wrote: Will say down here in richmond a CEL does not mean fail, only light that matters down here is the ABS light, now up in fairfax being so close to DC IDK how strict to the book they are up there. Good luck with the process!

Up here in Fairfax/Loudon, CEL means "no emissions pass" (we're required to have both emissions and safety inspections). Used to be a sniffer test, now I think they only do that on pre-OBDII cars (?)

Yea in FFX, OBDII cars need to have no CEL and also the readiness tests must have passed. Note that:

If more than two of the monitored systems are found to be 'not ready' for 1996 to 2000 model 
year vehicles, or more than one monitored system is found to be 'not ready' for 2001 and 
later model year vehicles, the vehicle is rejected from testing at no charge and the vehicle must be 
operated until the monitors have had a chance to run and the system is ready to test.

In reply to Armitage:

Thanks for that. And I just realized, they don't really have to worry about pre-OBDI cars 'cause they're age exempt. Only a few more years before all the pre-OBDII cars fall into the same category?

Man I always thought VA was crazy about cars (not the good kind of crazy) and reading this thread it sinks in how screwy the state is to manage car ownership. The inspection threw me for a loop the first time as I went to a bad shop and they dinged me for having tinted windows. Problem was, I didn't have tinted windows there was just a large black Sprinter Van parked next to my car and if you looked just right it seems like I had tinted windows so the guy said it was too late as he already entered the inspection data into the computer but would print that I fixed it the next day. Turns out he just wanted to leave and the next day I had to fight to get them to print it out. Then didn't know that after all those hours I should have asked for the emissions at the same time to had to go to a different shop for the emmission testing and wait another few hours.

I love Michigan, just one visit to Secretary of State, wait a fraction of the time I had to wait in VA to get served, walk out with title transferred, registration, new licenses, and done. No inspections, or county sheriffs snooping about, or getting taxed three times a year. Nice one online payment a year and done!

In reply to Advan046:

Why?, Because commonwealth.

We have been saying this quite often after the move down here, granted its still a good bit cheaper then MD overall but the state of VA is going to get its money anyway they can which is why you can find plenty of JDM cars here because the state will be happy to take money anyway they can, why?

Because commonwealth.......