Getting a title for a car

zomby woof wrote: I see. Here, both are the same document. I guess I should have asked, but why do I see so many cars for sale with no title? Are the papers actually lost, or is 'title' lost if the car is not registered for a period? Again, up here, that's practically non existent. Sorry for the thradjack. I've always wondered about this title business.

people buy a car but don't put it in there name right away (so they don't have to pay the 7% taxes) or buy it for parts or out of state. Then re-sell it or lose the paperwork so it is technically in the last owners name still.

I had a few salvage titled motorcycles that I bought to turn into race bikes. I would always get people who wanted me to provide a title for whatever reason, but I wasn't going to go through the expense and PITA to get that for a bike that would never be on the road again.

I am looking hard for a cheap vintage bike and I am amazed at the amount of people without titles. Claiming they had the bike for 15 or 20 years. I had bikes 20 years ago and they all had titles.

Maine is a 15 year rolling limit. Last October I had to get a title for my 1994 Saturn. When I sold it a couple of months ago, the new owner did not need a new title for herself, even though I'd only owned it for 6 months.

A while back, when I lived in Mass, a friend gave me his dead 82 Suzuki GS650L that had been sitting in his yard for 3 years. I got it going again and wanted to register it. Needed to get a title. NH, where my friend lived, didn't require a title for something that old. So he registered it again, then gave me a bill of sale and his new registration. With that, I was able to register and title it in my name. We also got to fill out a special form affirming that the vehicle was a gift, therefore free, and therefore I didn't have to pay any sales tax on it.

White_and_Nerdy wrote: A while back, when I lived in Mass, a friend gave me his dead 82 Suzuki GS650L that had been sitting in his yard for 3 years. I got it going again and wanted to register it. Needed to get a title. NH, where my friend lived, didn't require a title for something that old. So he registered it again, then gave me a bill of sale and his new registration. With that, I was able to register and title it in my name. </blockquote careful...

Or, buy a cheap plot of land in an unincorportated (into a city), uncovered county in GA, put a shed and a mailbox on it, and register your cars there w/o anything but a BOS (older than 25 years), no smog necessary.

As a side note, Montana has even cheaper tax rates (anual ad velorum tax) on cars than just about any other, a couple Ferrari owners I spoke with said that even though they live and reside in a given state, they use Montana essentially as a tax shelter for their cars in the method described above.

Just a curious point/question...

I am assuming that these states that the Title Service Companies operate in...you don't have to get a car inspected there. Since they're doing all the paperwork with a car in another state and all.

Makes me want to buy aforementioned plot of land, shed, and mailbox to set up a cut-rate title service company ;)

Clem