My friend’s '83 Ford Escort has been sitting in my garage for about 3 years or so. He had just moved to New York and was having trouble with parking tickets. Since I really wasn’t using the garage space, I offered to let him park it there. The sun roof on the car is missing. Plus it has no insurance and is not currently registered. My friend initially planned on fixing it up. But the last time we spoke, we agreed that he should just trash it. Basically, we were going to call a nearby garage and have them pick it up. But now my friend is out of the country for some undefined time. He’s told me that it would be fine if I needed to get rid of it. Unfortunately, I have no way of getting my hands on the title. And since I’m looking to sell our house, I need to get rid of this car fairly urgently. Any ideas on how I can do this? If it’s relevant, I live in New Jersey.
He can sign the title over to you and mail it. If he doesn’t have the title, he can apply for a lost title replacement, but it sounds like he doesn’t want to do that.
If he doesn’t care, I think you can put one of those “not responsible for Joe Blow’s property at my address after suchandsuch a date” and after that point, you can call the wrecker. You’d need to look into your local laws regarding that, I suppose.
Hallgirl1 had a series of cars that broke to the point beyond repair. For each one, we put a “Free Car–doesn’t run, you tow” ad in the newspaper. Each one was gone in a matter of hours.
We had the titles though.
A friend of mine had a junker of a car that her boyfriend had let her use (title was still in his name). He skipped town, the car broke and she was able to get another vehicle (not needing the boyfriend’s car). She and friends pushed into onto the side of a public street, where it was ticketed and eventually towed.
I’d start by calling, or visiting your local DMV and ask for their advice. They’re likely to tell you that you need the title to dispose of the car, but it’s worth a try.
If your friend doesn’t know where the title is, but the car is in his name, you could have him send you a bill of sale w/ the car’s VIN number on it. You can probably use that to apply for a lost title, again check w/ your DMV for lost title procedures, but there will be a fee.
Once you have a title, in your name, you could take the car to a wrecking yard and sell it. You might get 50-75 bucks out of the deal. You could also donate it to a charity. That’s the easiest, as they will pick it up. If you donate it, you can use it as a tax deduction in the amount of the fair market value. The charity should be able to help w/ this.
Junk cars are very difficult to get rid of w/o a title.
I was going to mention that option, I’ve also known people who did this, but it’s illegal and it could be traced back to you if local authorities wanted to go to the trouble. It’s not a wise choice.
Not true. It was true until a couple of years ago, but too many people were taking fair market value deductions for cars that wouldn’t run. So the IRS tightened the rules considerably. Now, you get a deduction for what the charity nets when it disposes of the car. As a result, few charities are willing to accept cars that won’t run.
See here
That’ll rack up storage bills that can haunt you forever. It’s awfully tempting, though.
Once you have the title, or whatever documentation you need, you can call charities like Car Heaven and 1-800-CAR-DIED and they’ll come and get it for free. We donated my father’s car that way when he could no longer drive it; they came and towed it out of the underground parking even!
I once inadvertently got rid of a car without the title – it was a 10+ year old Escort and the breaks went. I called the junk yard and mentioned that if I couldn’t move it by a certain hour then I’d get a parking ticket (this was in New York City), so the guys showed up with the truck within a few hours. I forgot to bring the title, and the guy said he was supposed to collect it to protect himself, but that he’d do me a favor and let it go. I offered to bring it to him later but he declined. This was Queens, though, things sometimes work a little differently there.
I also once wrecked my car in a rural area (in PA, just past Del water gap). The car was towed to a junk yard, and when I went back a few months later to give them the title, they had already scrapped it (which was fine with me, I was just happy to walk away from the accident). I had never really bothered to get in touch with them, but they never called me either.
My friend just e-mailed me back. His ex-girlfriend found the title. I’ll be meeting up with her later to get it. This just got easier. All I have to do is forge my friend’s signature on the title. Thanks to everyone for helping.
The cite you provided mentions, at leasr twice, the fair maket value. I think the problem was that people were inflating the value on their tax returns. Reminds me of when Clinton was in office. The press got hold of his itemized deductions and there was a listing for a donation of used underwear along w/ the amount claimed. How lregitimate does that sound?
Call the closest high school with an auto shop. They love to get cars they can use as teaching aids.
I was thinking the same thing earlier. I think I would have to have my friend agree to something like that. There are potential liability issues involved that I’m not sure about (i.e. the bar holding the hood up breaks and falls on a kid’s head).
Getting the title made things alot eaiser…yes. But I think you meant to say that it’s even easier becuase it was already signed.
psss…it might not be a terrible idea to have a mod get rid of that last statement. While I would do the same thing, I wouldn’t write about it. That’s the kinda thing that can come back to haunt you someday. It was already signed when you got it…right.
I left a message for one of the local junkyards earlier. They just called me back and said that they’d come over any time to pick up the car. They said that they didn’t need the title, just the keys. Isn’t that kind of weird?
I’d still give them the signed title, and make sure you get a receipt from them saying that you turned it over to them.
Good point. Luckily, it won’t be an issue since I won’t even need the title.
This was easy as cake. I didn’t end up getting the title due to some miscommunication. But the tow truck driver showed up at 8:30 Saturday morning. He pushed the car out of my garage (since it was at a difficult angle for the truck). He latched it up, gave me a “removed for junk” receipt, and was gone. He even took the old plates off for me and told me to return them to DMV.