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The Expert Podcast brings you firsthand narratives from experts across diverse industries, including private investigators, general contractors and builders, insurance agencies, vehicle specialists, lawyers, and many others.
So one of the most common questions that we get in our sales department in getting a title for a vehicle is using a mechanics lean or a storage lean or slap storage fees on a vehicle or call a vehicle abandoned. In most cases, those ideas come from online Internet advice that's probably not good advice, and here's why. In most states, almost every state, if you call something an abandoned vehicle, it's not Finders Keepers—you don't get to keep it. We're going to take a look at a couple examples, and this one here happens to be from the state of Oregon about what the law says if you call something abandoned and what the law says if you want to do a mechanics lean because that's something another backup where if somebody runs into problems getting a title, they say, "Well, I'll just put a mechanics lean on it and say that I fixed it and I'll get a title." It doesn't work that way, and there's a lot of restrictions. Because of the fact that there's a lot of fraud involved with abandoned vehicles and mechanics leans, the state's DMV and titling authorities audit all of these mechanics leans to make sure they're correct, and they're usually not.
Here's what they talk about in Oregon. First of all, this is going to be the same in most states because even though it's only one state, the states use federal guidelines for their titling processes. So just because this is one state, you'll see the same exact language in many other states. This is their packet. The packet contains information for possessory leans, mechanics leans, or abandoned vehicles. If you notice, right at the top, even before they talk about it, it says, "In order to title a vehicle, one must have acquired a legal interest through some legal process." That's in italics. That is the first line of this entire 40-page document. The first line says that you must obtain legal interest through a legal process. You can't just say, "Finders Keepers, my car," right? You can't say, "I called it." You have to do a legal process.
Now, the other thing it says underneath is a tower—a towing company claiming a possessory lean must have a valid license business certificate issued under ORS 822.205. So in order to claim a mechanics lean or claim a towing lean, you have to have a valid business license for that type of business. You can't have a business license for a daycare; you have to have a business license for automotive.
Let's take a look at now, that's the bad news. The good news is if you have a vehicle with a title problem, there's much better ways of doing it than an abandoned vehicle or mechanics lean. So don't give up hope, don't despair. Actually, the other ways are easier. The other ways are faster. Some of these possessory leans, abandoned vehicles, you have to wait 90 days, 120 days, some states have to wait 6 months to get a title. The other methods that you use that are legal and legitimate and what you're supposed to do sometimes take 20 or 30 days.
So what does it say here? Advice from the DMV: The DMV cannot advise you which of any laws referenced in the packet there may be other laws or procedures. If you have questions, you may wish to seek legal counsel. Well, that doesn't seem like it applies to you, but here's the thing: The way it does apply to you is don't try to get any answers out of the DMV if you haven't already tried. Good luck with that. DMV does not have tech support; they don't have phone support; they don't have customer support. You can't call them up and say, "Hey, how do I do this? What's the form? What do I do?" They don't have that. How do we know? Well, we get several thousand calls a day, contacts a day in our Title Company, most of them are people that tried to call DMV to get some basic answers. DMV doesn't have customer service, so they say, "I'll just call this title company and get information." So we know how many people are having struggles with DMV answers.
So here are what they say are situations where ownership of a vehicle may be transferable through the possessory lean process or mechanics lean process. Number one: Vehicles owned by a tenant responsible for rent—the landlord may have a claim of lean. So if you have a signed lease agreement for renting an apartment that matches the name on the registration, you might be able to do a mechanics lean, but even then there's some hiccups, and we'll talk about those. You can't just say, "Well, somebody left it on my property," or "I was charging storage and they never paid to storage." That's different, right?
Vehicles owned by a tenant occupying rent for lease premise—this is not renting space for a car. Vehicles abandoned on private property—you might think, "Oh, here we go, that's me," and removed at the request of the owner. Right, you can't just do it yourself; you have to have it towed away by a licensed towing facility. The person towing the vehicle may have a claim to a lean under ORS 98.835. So the private property owner doesn't have a claim; the person towing the vehicle may have a claim. And remember what the first thing it said was: In order to tow a vehicle, you have to have a license.
Vehicles repaired, stored, or towed at the request of the owner—wait, here we go, this could be me. The person who repaired, stored, or towed the vehicle may have a claim of lean; however, you have to have a business license to be a repair shop. You have to have an automotive license for repair or body shop or automotive dealer. Your video will be back in 8 seconds. In the meantime, remember you have access to live one-on-one consultation, undivided attention of a licensed, certified expert in this subject and many others. We want to listen to your story, we want to hear your questions, and give you expert advisement of your options. We want to tell you what we know about your situation and what options you have. Now, back to your video.
And you might say, "Well, wait a minute, I got my buddy, he's got a repair shop. I'll do it." But you have to notice what it says: It has to be repaired at the request of the owner. So the first thing they're going to ask you for this process is where is your signed repair order? The owner of the vehicle had to sign an authorization for you to do work on the vehicle. If you don't have that, you can't do it.
Number four: Vehicles abandoned by a tenant which you have a lease agreement—we already talked about that. Vehicles towed at the request of an appropriate authority—police, county, city. So if you're a towing company and you tow a vehicle at the request of the government, you can do it. Number six: Vehicles left or parked in violation of ORS 9810 and removed either by a prescribed property from a parking facility at the request of the owner—same thing, that's the towing company, not the owner. Once again, abandoned vehicles, first sentence, bold, italic, underline—couldn't be more important. In order to title any vehicle, including abandoned vehicles, one must have acquired a legal interest through some legal process. Generally, it will not be the property owner but whoever purchases the vehicle at a subsequent sale, meaning auction, that applies for the title. Let me say that again: In order to title a vehicle, including abandoned vehicles, one must have acquired an interest. That will not be the property owner; it'll be who the property owner sells it to at auction. And it has a checkbox for vehicles abandoned on private property. The law states a person who is the owner on which a vehicle is abandoned may have a tower tow the vehicle from the property. That's also underlined, which means that's what you have to do. You can't just say, "Oh, it's my car, I'm going to sell it." You have to have a towing company tow it away, and before you do that, you have to put a notice on the vehicle and you have to sign some other documents.
Once again, it has an underlined headline: Titling a previously abandoned vehicle. To obtain a title, a person must have acquired a legal interest in the vehicle. How many times do they have to say that? They have to say it because people think they can just grab a vehicle and say, "Finders Keepers." In most cases, people do this through some form of purchase or financial agreement. That change of interest is accomplished through the voluntary existing title of the vehicle. In the case of abandoned vehicles, any transfer of interest will be involuntary and require some form of legal process—operation of law. One cannot simply obtain a title because the vehicle was left on one's property. Couldn't be more clear than that.
So I don't want to be the bearer of bad news because you probably are thinking, had wishful thinking of, "Well, this car's on my property, I get to have a title." More than likely, it wasn't just magically left on your property. You probably know where it came from; you probably bought it on eBay or Craigslist and didn't get a title and think, "Well, I could do abandoned vehicle." If that's the case, there's way better ways of getting a title. Remember, I'm going to say it again: What the government tells you—one cannot simply obtain a title because the vehicle was left on one's property. Can't do it. You have to go through what they call a million times—operation of law, legal interest, legal process.
The good news is there's a way you can do that without having to do all this. Look, this process has 32 pages of instructions, forms, affidavits, waiting periods—60 days, 90 days, notifications—all kinds of laws. Right, I won't bore you with all the details; we won't even go through any more of it. Okay, but here's the thing to take away: If you want to go through all this, even when you are not entitled to do it, knock yourself out. It's not going to work. There are easier ways to do it. You could do a bonded title, court order title. All of those processes are described on our website cartitles.com. You don't have to torture yourself with mechanics lean; you don't have to torture yourself with abandoned vehicle. The reason you're probably thinking abandoned is good is you probably read on some web forum or somebody told you at the swap meet or somebody told you at the racetrack to do abandoned vehicle, and it sounds good, but it doesn't work. And it tells you right here in the law that it doesn't work. So don't torture yourself—do it the easy way.
And you might not think, "Well, bonded title, court order title is not easy." It's a lot easier than this, and our website shows you how easy it is. You could do it all yourself for free. You don't have to pay anybody to do this; you don't have to ask any mechanic to lie on affidavits. It's all legal, and we have title assistance even if you want help with it. So use this as a resource. You'll see a link below for this document; you can read it on your own and make sure that if you're trying to get a title for a vehicle that has a problem, you do it the easy way. That's the first question people ask: What's the easiest way to get a title? Bonded title or court order title. "Oh, I don't want to do all that, but what else is there?" The other ways are harder. Abandoned vehicle is even harder, and it doesn't even work.
So make it easy on yourself—don't torture yourself. Get your title. The good news is if it's your car, you deserve a title, and it'll all work out in the end, as long as it's not stolen. Thank you for watching another video at actualhuman.com and subscribe. TV. Remember, if you have questions or comments about our videos, put them in the link below. Also remember that you have availability and access to live one-on-one question and answer consultation with a licensed expert in a number of fields—investigations, insurance, surety bonds, civil court mediation, even things like real estate records research, real estate brokers, real estate mortgage lenders. In addition, you're going to find that experts are available in business segments—business development, marketing, advertising, certified licensed experts. So if you do find this content valuable and you want to delve more deeply into a subject, you can't ask YouTube a question, right? But if you want to talk to somebody live and actual human, use the link below. Thanks for watching.