What do I do with my plates and registration when I dispose of my car? (Ohio)

Factual Questions
1

For some reason I can’t find an answer for this (maybe I’m searching the wrong phrase). So, I figured I’d ask here:

My car died awhile back. It’s been sitting in my driveway and I’ve been paying insurance. Finally decided to just have one of those “we will tow away your dead car and give you cash” people take it. I managed to get the title notarized and get an appointment for them to tow it away. OK, so I plan on giving them the title today when they come.

What do I do with tags and registration? Here’s what I assumed: Take the plates and registration to the DMV (BMV in Ohio) and say I sold the car.

But I’m confused because: In my online searching, some people said to just keep and destroy the plates and the registration will just expire on its own.

This doesn’t sound good to me because as far as I know the car has to be insured while it’s registered and I really want to cancel the insurance before it renews in approx 2 weeks. The registration doesn’t expire for awhile. I think either an early insurance cancellation or failure to renew a registration (or does it simply expire?) could trigger fines and penalties. I want to be able to cancel insurance and get a refund, not have to worry about the registration renewal etc.

If I’m thinking too much, I apologize. I have bad anxiety and I like to know what I am supposed to do before I do things, and I imagine walking in the BMV with my plates and having them look at me like I have 2 heads.

2

Our last car was taken by a junkyard. We did the ownership transfer, they took care of the paperwork and plates from there.

In California, a car generally needs a valid registration to even be towed.

3

Thanks. I don’t know why I didn’t just ask them. I guess because they only mentioned needing the title.

4

I’ve sold three vehicles now, in Michigan (YMMV). Here’s what I did:

-keep a copy of the title with the new owner’s signature on it. If the new owner doesn’t go to the DMV to formally register the car in their name, you will at least have proof that you are no longer the owner.

-Keep the plates from the car. A friend learned the hard way that if you leave the plates on the car, and the new owner takes his sweet-ass time pursuing a new title, then the new owner can rack up all kinds of parking tickets that automatically go to your name, since you’re still the owner of record.

-Don’t worry about the registration. You’ve got the license plates.

-Insurance? Things may vary in your state, but my dad used to only insure his Corvette and motorcycle for the warmer months, since they didn’t get driven in the winters. So your dead car in the driveway might not need insurance.

If it’s being towed, then I suppose it’s functioning as a trailer. If it’s being hauled away on a flatbed, then isn’t it just cargo (ergo no registration needed)?

I think many of these questions could be answered most straight-dopedly by contacting your insurer and/or DMV in your state.

5

We had to do a non-operating for a few months before we had the junkyard take it.
Even on a flatbed is “towing” when it comes to having a current registration.

6

I sold a car privately in Indiana. I made a photocopy of the title after I signed it over. I also wrote up a receipt that said ownership was transferred for $n.00, paid in full, and I was no longer responsible for the car. I cancelled the insurance by calling the company, effective on the date that I dated the receipt, and made sure the guy I sold it to was aware of it. He got his own insurance. I went online and cancelled the registration. I suppose he drove it to the BMV with technically cancelled plates, but that was his business. I checked online a couple of days later, and the car was no longer listed under my name, so I suppose he retitled it, and registered it.

Probably the company you are selling the car to has all this for you-- receipts and such. You can probably cancel the plates online. If they are a dealer or a junkyard, they probably have those magnetic plates they can attach to the car. But like someone said, if they dolly-tow it, they probably don’t need plates.

7

Rather than searching for random internet how-to postings from people of unknown expertise, I suggest you/we start from the horses mouth. The Ohio BMV says this: Ohio BMV Paperwork When Selling a Car | DMV.ORG

You *are *selling the vehicle. Whether the buyer drives it, re-sells it to another driver, sends it to Cuba, uses it as a sofa on their front porch, or crushes it into scrap metal is immaterial.

So you do all the steps on that page and you’ll be totally golden as far as Ohio is concerned. None of them are onerous. The fact you *might *be able to skate on one piece of paper if the car never drives in Ohio again is false economy.

8

late edit: one last paragraph:

The buyer’s procedures will vary depending on what he’s doing with the car. But none of that is your concern. If the buyer needs any papers or sigs from you, it’s his responsibility to know what those are and get them from you.

9

In California, you need current valid registration for a vehicle merely to be present on the street and that applies even if it is up on a flatbed trailer.

If you have a junk car that you want to have towed away, and no current registration for it, the DMV can give you a special one-day-only permit for that. You must specify the exact day you will tow the vehicle, and place from which it will be towed, and the place to which it will be towed.

10

In Indiana you don’t need a vehicle to be registered if it is on private property. This is because of the “parts car.” Sometimes someone has two cars of the same make, model, and year, and is using parts from both to fix up one, and with eventually only drive one car, junking the used up carcass of the old “parts” car. When it gets junked, it can be plated with a “dealer” plate used by the tow yard. It might be parked on your private property functioning as spare parts for your working, titled, registered car for a couple of years, and be unregistered that whole time.

If you sell what’s left of it to a scrap dealer, who tows it in an enclosed container, it doesn’t need plated.

Speaking from experience.

ETA: The parts car must be on private property. It can’t be parked on the street.

11

I’m told you’re supposed to turn in the plates, but it’s a California thing to nail up your old plates in your barn or shed.

I also have several sets of plates I’ve removed from wrecks I’ve found way down in ditches and creeks. Again, I’m in the wrong, but it’s a victimless crime, at least.

12

In Ohio at least, when you sign the title over to someone else, your (the seller’s) obligation to insure and maintain registry of the vehicle ceases. That obligation is transferred to the new title-holder. A signed bill of sale is always helpful in these situations if the buyer drags their feet transferring the title.
Throw the old plates and registration in the trash.

13

In California when you sell or give away a car you are the registered owner until you or the new owner notifies the DMV. The present owner should fill out a change of ownership form and send it to the DMV. Keep a copy of the form and all records about the sale.

If the DMV has not been notified about an owner change then the old owner is responsible for any expenses the car runs up. Parking tickets, accidents and so forth.

You do not have to do anything with the plates or the registration.

14

:confused: Talk about a recipe for disaster! This is insane.

Not often do I get to brag about Ohio, but apparently in this case we are light-years ahead of California.

15

As a Californian my only advice would be to do this before the registration expires. In CA if registration expires without placing the vehicle in Planned Non-Operation (PNO) you get hit with penalties and extra costs when the vehicle is finally re-registered. Do the next owner a favor and transfer before expiration.

16

I assume though, as a few others have stated, that’s the tower’s responsibility, right?

I had a junk truck I got rid of last summer. It hadn’t had a current registration on it in years. The tow truck driver wrote ‘JUNK’ on the title and took it away. That was all up to snuff with the Wisconsin DMV.
Anything he did on his end after I handed him the title, I don’t know, but I can’t imagine it was my problem.

However, to add to that, our DMV (and probably many others), have asked that sellers proactively report vehicle sales to them. Many many people didn’t like that, concerned that it was just the government trying to make a few tax bucks in private transactions, but the DMV stated that while the buyer is required to do this anyways, they’re asking the seller to do it as well so that if the buyer “forgets”, and something happens it’s not still registered to the seller.

Case in point: My business just bought pick up truck from another business. They seller asked that we get to the DMV and get a new title ASAP. The last truck he sold, the person never got a new title, it was later stolen, driven to Chicago (from Milwaukee) and used in a robbery. The cops, naturally, were banging on his door since it was still in his name. (It also didn’t help that decals with his business name were still on it to so the media was calling).

So, my suggestion:
Call the DMV and ask them to get a good answer, also the junker will probably know exactly what to do, but if the DMV wants you to keep the plates, it’s better if you have them off to begin with.
After it’s gone, the DMV may want you to report the transfer.
If it’s not going to move between now and then, I’d call up my insurance company and cancel the insurance on it. Tell them what’s going on. They’ll either let you cancel it now since you don’t use it (or based on it being non-operable), or they’ll let you cancel it for a future date when it’s getting picked up.

IME, you can call the DMV 5 times and get 5 answers, but it’s still your best bet.

17

Fellow ohioan, speaking from experience.

If the car was parked in your driveway, you did not need to have full insurance on it. It could be considered a “parked” car, and as long as it is never in the street, you only have to pay a pretty nominal insurance on it, I think I was paying like $5 a month, if that, and that is basically in case it manages to roll out of your driveway or someone steals it for a joy ride (assuming they can start it).

There is no penalty for failing to renew your registration, there is only a penalty if you are late renewing your registration. So, as long as you plan on never registering that car again, that is not something to be worried about.

Insurance is a slightly trickier matter. Your insurance should be fine dropping your coverage, no problem, but if the junk yard does not register that they have the car, there is a chance that you may be asked to provide proof of insurance on the vehicle. As long as you have the bill of sale that shows that you no longer own it, that is plenty.

When I junked my last car (pretty recently) and went to only driving my roommates car for a while, my personal insurance went down to $12 a month. I had already paid my month’s premium, so I haven’t needed to pay a premium since. I possibly could have gotten a refund instead of a credit towards future premiums, but I didn’t ask.

Keep your plates if you want to remember your car fondly, destroy them if you want to erase the memories. Ohio has no need of them back. It is a good idea, though to remove them before they take you car, as it may cause you some irritation if they get used for a nefarious purpose in the future.

18

Huh?? :confused:

Actually, Ohio, per their BMV webpage as I linked above, is *exactly *like California.

If you sell a car in Ohio, and the buyer never bothers to notify BMV, and the seller never bothers to notify BMV, and the buyer racks up tickets/accidents/etc., the seller is still the one on the hook.

In simple terms: Until either buyer *or *seller tells OH BMV or CA DMV about the sale, it hasn’t legally happened. Some sigs on papers the government has never seen are not going to alter the government’s idea of who to hang when they can’t find anyone else.

In Ye Olden Dayes it was assumed all buyers were always honest and there was no mechanism for sellers to report sales. That changed back in the 1970s pretty much nationwide. Now there are ways for sellers to tell their state agency about a sale. It’s still 100% optional, but the only person a seller can hurt by skipping it is themselves.

19

OH MY GOD.

Op, I have no idea where you live, but unless you live IN the states where the above people are advising you, don't listen to them.

Here in Virginia, the rules on plates and insurance for cars you are either parking in the driveway, or getting rid of altogether, is that BEFORE you cancel insurance, you MUST return the plates directly to the DMV, and you need to get a receipt from them showing that you did.

IF YOU FAIL TO DO SO, you will be fined a huge amount, hundreds of dollars, AND you might have your license suspended. I know, because that happened to me. I was late by only three days, returning my plates, after getting rid of the car; the ignoramus at the DMV told me that I didn’t need a receipt, didn’t need to pay a fine, and could just carry on as usual. Tah-tah.

Six months later, I was pulled over for driving my new car with expired registration. It expired, because I was used to the State sending me bills to renew it in a timely manner. What was worse, upon checking the records, the police officer found that my license had been suspended, for failing to pay the late fee on my previous plates.

Virginia had not bothered to notify me of any of this, because they assumed that I knew what choices I was making.

I had to go home, park off the street, then take a leave of absence from work for two weeks while I sent away via snail mail for an actual BIRTH CERTIFICATE from the state I was born in (no other ID was allowed here); and then I had to pay the multi-hundred dollar fine; go to court with all the paperwork, fortunately have the very understanding judge delete the driving on a suspended license charge and the driving with an expired tag charge; then finally get my license reinstated for ANOTHER multi-hundred dollar charge, before finally paying to get my registration renewed (with a tacked on late fee).

Needless to say, my insurance company promptly raised my rates accordingly.

Find out what your states rules are. Follow them. And be aware, as soon as you do cancel your insurance, the insurance company will IMMEDIATELY notify the State DMV of that, and set everything in motion for whatever else might follow. Because they are required to do that, by state law.

20

Makes me think of my old care. I’ve owned two in my life, both in West Texas – a used car I bought in 1975, then I traded it in to a local Chevrolet dealership for a new one in 1979. How the dealership handled my used car in trade-in I don’t know, but a couple years later I received a letter from the El Paso District Attorney’s office about the old car. It had somehow made it’s way to there and then been abandoned or involved in some sort of crime, I can’t even remember now, and they wanted to know about the car. I threw the letter away and never heard anything else about it.