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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 what are loopholes you can use to get a title for a motor vehicle when you don't have the right paperwork? See, here's a title on the screen. This is what you want. This is kind of the magic document that you would like to have, something like this, a certificate for your car, truck, trailer, motorcycle, Camper RV, whatever it is. Even boats. Until you have that certificate in your hand, you have nothing. You're not an owner. You're just somebody who may have a bill of sale, maybe have a receipt, but none of that means anything until you get a legal title certificate in your hands. You've probably already found this out. You've probably been to the DMV. They told you, "Get out of here with your bill of sale. We don't do bill of sales unless you have the document from the title. You're out of luck."
Well, what's the loophole? What can I do? According to Wikipedia, a loophole is an ambiguity, inadequacy in a law which can be used to circumvent or avoid the purpose of the system. Circumvent or avoid, remember those two words, because what you're trying to do is avoid the proper procedure to get a title because you don't like that procedure. It's too hard or you can't do it, or it's impossible, or you just don't feel like it.
One of the most common loopholes used in the past was the Vermont loophole. Everybody wanted to do Vermont. You could send their bill of sale to Vermont, you get a registration, then you get that, then you bring it to your state, tell them, "Hey, I moved from Vermont, give me a title." It worked for a while, but it got shut down. Why? Because it was circumventing and avoiding the purpose of the system. Right. The purpose of the system isn't just to hand out titles to anybody who asks for one, anybody who has some random bill of sale on an envelope. Because if that was the case, then no car would be safe. Your car could be taken anytime by somebody using a loophole.
So that's the bad news. Don't worry about that. That's the bad news. What's the good news? Is there are methods you could use to get a title. Want to call it a loophole? Fine, you can call it a loophole. It's a legitimate method to get a title. It's probably going to be harder than you want, because what you want to have happen is just call somebody up, type on a computer, do something with your VIN number, get me a title, and then magically in your mailbox, one of these shows up. That's what you want. Again, if it was that easy, no car would be safe. Your vehicle could be taken by anybody. Go on vacation for two weeks, you come back, somebody used a loophole to get a title, make up a fake bill of sale, right? So you don't want that. You think you do because you want to get a title as fast as you can in your hands, but you don't want it because then the title would be worthless. It wouldn't mean anything if you could get one easily. Then anybody could get a title for any car they wanted and you'd be out of luck.
So what do you do? Enough of me rambling. Now, what do you do? Well, this is the process. Some states you can do a bonded title. We'll talk about that in another video. This is the most powerful one. This is called a court order title, declaratory judgment. In some states they call it some counties they call it a magistrate title. And here's what it says: "Assist you in obtaining a title for a vehicle which you own but for which you did not receive a title at the time of purchase." Does that sound like you? You own it, but you did not receive a title for it at the time of purchase. That sounds exactly like you. This is exactly the process that is created for you to get a title.
Now, let's go back to loophole page. Right, loophole says, circumvent or avoid the system. This is the system. You don't have to avoid anything. You can go right into the system because here's the problem. If you avoid the system that's giving you your title, eventually it's going to be a problem. If you avoid requirements and somehow try to get a title, either A, it's not going to work, or B, even if it does work, it'll get revoked or you get in trouble because you avoided the purpose of the system.
So, that being said, what do you got to do for this? Now, this is one county, this is Hernando County in Florida. There are 3,611 different counties in the country. They all do it differently, but it's almost always the same. The features are basically the same thing. First, let's read what Hernando County says because most counties don't even tell you what to do. Most counties you can't walk in and say, "Hey, I want to do a court order title." They're going to say, "What are you talking about? Get out of here. We don't know about court order titles. Courts don't do titles. Courts do judgments."
And most of the time they're doing judgments about other things. Somebody's fence is too high in their neighbor's yard, the dog's barking too much, um, they got to get a judgment of eviction. They're not doing judgments for titles. It's very rare. So most counties never see this. Fortunately, there's a handful of them across the country, five or six that have a very specific description of a court order title.
So what happens? The court may issue an order directing Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a certificate of title. See what it says? Directing them, not asking them, not begging them, not saying, "Pretty please with sugar on top." It's directing them. If the court issues an order, the DMV has to do it. You walk into the DMV with that order, slap it on the counter, they have to give you a title. End of story. The court is their boss, like going over their head.
So, what do you got to do before the court will consider it? You must take the following steps: Diligent search to locate the former owner. There's ways to do that. We'll get into some of these in a minute. But let's look at what they are. Provide a bill of sale. Oh, you have that, right? If the former owner has moved from the area, um, you should send a certified letter. We'll talk about that. You must get a printout from the tag office which lists the last title number. Easy enough to do. You must get a motor vehicle identification number inspection sheet. So, you have to go to your sheriff, some states let you do it at a garage. You have to check the VIN to make sure it's not stolen, right? You have to complete an affidavit saying how did you get the vehicle?
Then once you have all that, that's not real hard, right? Just a few things. You file it with the clerk of, in this case, Circuit Court. Some states, counties do it differently. After, listen, listen to this, this is important. After you file the paperwork, your case will be reviewed by court staff and forwarded to a county judge for consideration. In most instances, you will not have to appear in court. That's the key. This is not like Law and Order, Jack McCoy, CSI, big court case. It's an administrative process. It happens in the office. If the judge signs the order, you'll be notified. When the order is available, you go pick it up. How long does it take? It tells you right here. Process will take approximately three weeks. It's not that long. That's shorter than Vermont. People like that Vermont loophole, right? But it took longer than three weeks and you had to pay more money because when you did Vermont, you had to pay Vermont what I call ransom. It was a sales tax, 8% on the book value of the vehicle. So, this one you don't have to pay that.
What do you need? Well, in this county, you need some forms. You have this affidavit, you have this um, you have this uh, de-complaint for declaratory judgment, you have all these documents. Most counties don't give you this. They don't already have this pre-done for you. You have to type all this up yourself. Right? But there's ways to make it easier. If you're in Hernando County, you're lucky. You can just get this form, print it out, fill it in, you're good to go. The other 3,000-plus counties, you don't have this luxury. You have to figure it out for yourself. Fortunately, our website gives you a lot of this information. Go to cartitles.com and you can get all this information, how to do this.
But this is the loophole. If you're looking for a loophole for the DMV, this is it. The DMV can't give you a title unless you have the old title, unless you got one of these magic golden tickets from the last owner signed over to you on the back. You're done. You're out of luck. This is your loophole. And people hear, "Oh, court order title, I don't want to do it." Forget how hard it is. It's easier than doing Vermont. It's cheaper than doing Vermont. It's easier than doing any of the other crazy mental gymnastic things that are out there. Going to other states, do corporation, do this, do that. Forget about that. This is faster, cheaper, easier.
People hear the word "court" and they get scared. Maybe it's because you feel like you're going to get arrested. If you got a warrant, then maybe you're right. But if you are a legitimate person, got a legitimate car, not stolen, no liens, this is the way to go. It's faster, cheaper, easier. You can do it all yourself for free. You don't have to pay anybody for this, right? Of course, we have a title service if you want assistance with it. We can help you. But this is your way to go.
More on the details, other videos, put a bookmark on this channel. Save this video. We'll talk about bonded title. We'll talk about how to look up the prior owners. We'll talk about how to prepare these documents.