Parking ticket, sure.
But while the owner will get the red light ticket in the mail, it is usually very easy to fight, as they cannot identify the driver. Y Jurisdiction MV.
As for accidents, the answer is “it’s complicated.”
If the friend parks it illegally somewhere and it gets towed to the impound lot, the friend might decide to walk away. A month later the OP will be getting a $5000 bill from the impound lot demanding storage payment for “his” car. The OP could choose to ignore it as well but he’ll be the one the collection agency comes after and it’ll be his credit getting trashed not his friend’s.
Thank you all for the advice!
I had already removed the insurance from the vehicle, and the new driver has said that he’s gotten insurance on it. An agent from my insurance company has recommended “change the registration yesterday or repossess it tomorrow”, and gave me a little grief over not telling them sooner- she understood that I had no idea how this was supposed to work & didn’t want to transfer ownership until I got paid. From everything I’ve read, it’s starting to sound like I should repo it or transfer title and just not tell him- he won’t notice because he never reads anything.
It seems, unfortunately, that legally selling it will require me to get him to a DMV. And to have proof of insurance. And hope he hasn’t pitched the registration and proof of emissions inspection from the glove box. The likelihood of all of these happening/being true is pretty slim. I know him well enough to know that, given the choice of “sit in a government office for an hour playing on his phone while I handle paperwork”, or “complain about how hard this all is until I have to repo the car to cover my ass”, he’ll choose the latter.
I really hate to throw away a long friendship over this, but it’s looking more and more like my smartest option is to just repossess it and leave him high & dry.
I’d say around $2000, but our agreed-on price was $1500. I’ve received $500 so far, and… well, if that’s what I get it sucks, but sucks less than being legally liable for him just not being responsible.
There’s a minor snag that about transferring the title now with an honest sell price- per the MVA, if I sell for at least $500 less than their estimated value of $1625-2000, I’ll need the bill of sale notarized. Given his laziness about any grown-up concerns, I’m pretty sure the easiest way to make that happen is to get his power of attorney.
Regarding all this talk of being held liable for someone else getting in to an accident. I think that’s going to depend a lot on the circumstances.
Someone I know sold their truck to another person. The truck was stolen from Milwaukee and driven to Chicago and used in a robbery. Since the person he sold the truck to never registered it the police, naturally, showed up at his door. So far as I know, he got it all cleared up. IIRC, he gave the police the name of the person he sold it to, that person told the police it was stolen.
What hurt him more is that a work truck and still had the name of his business on the side of it. The picture of his truck with his logo at the scene of a robbery was on the news. Even though it was all sorted out, legally, on his end, he got a lot of angry calls and emails.
My business bought another truck from him. When we got it, he had already spray painted over the logo and made sure we were planning on registering it ASAP.
In KY - you can sign an “Incomplete Transfer of Title” - https://transportation.ky.gov/Organizational-Resources/Forms/TC%2096-3.pdf (PDF) - I had to do it once where I sold a vehicle to a guy, signed the title to him, but he never completed the paperwork onhis end. This gets it out of your name and out of the system.
You need to call your state’s requisite motor vehicle department / county clerk or whatever, because clearly the consequence of your situation greatly varies from state to state.
I also lived in KY, and coincidentally I was coming in here to post exactly what simster posted above about the affidavit of “Incomplete Transfer of Title.”
Another thing about KY is that you pay personal property taxes on vehicles, which is typically collected when you pay your registration. If you decide not to register a vehicle, you still owe the taxes, and if you don’t pay that tax yearly, they will not allow you to complete any other registrations until you pay the tax you owe.
I just a truck to friends - who paid. In California there is a form on your title with which you can tell the DMV that you have given up title to the vehicle. This works even if the purchaser does not register it, and keeps you from being held liable for anything that happens to it.
In my case we all went to AAA and my friend registered the truck as I watched, so no problem. But my research on what to do for a private sale certainly made me think that I could be liable if I didn’t turn in the form and the registration was not completed.
Probably true, but what does that have to do with red light cameras?
Nothing. But I was pointing out a way in which the OP could end up being liable for some significant charges.
Have you even seen the friend since he moved out of state? Do you know where he lives and where he keeps the car? If not, you’ll have a hard time repossessing the car.
If you decide to repo the car, be sure to do it legally. If you just find the car and have it towed (or you drive it away), you could be in violation of some law. You don’t need to create more trouble for yourself than you already have.
Do you have a written contract? Do you have good records of the payments (and non-payments)? Without these it might be hard to prove your “friend” is in default.
As you now know, you need to get this resolved ASAP. Every day this guy drives a car with your name on it is a day you’re exposed to needless risk, especially since the guy is irresponsible.
Definitely contact the DMV and ask them what to do. Here in Oregon, you are required to notify the DMV of a vehicle sale, within ten days. That’s to cover your ass in case the new owner fails to register it and/or does something irresponsible with it like abandon it and let it get impounded.
If it were me, I would sign over the title, write up a bill of sale for $1500 and a promissory note for $1500 and a letter stating that he has paid $500 of the note and still owes another $1000. Then mail all three documents to the buyer. The snag is that you won’t have his signature on the promissory note, so it may be impossible to enforce. But you’ve already resigned yourself to that possibility anyway. You might be able to bolster your claim by putting a phrase in the promissory note like, “Buyer taking possession of the vehicle, or registering it, or obtaining insurance on it, shall constitute acceptance of this agreement.” It might stand up in court, or it might not. But the important things is that you document in writing what has been up to now a verbal contract. I suggest you use the date you handed over the car to him as the date on the bill of sale and the promissory note; don’t use today’s date. And then notify your DMV that you sold the car x number of days ago. Apologize for not notifying them sooner.
That may be true but A can insist that B sign a waiver where B agrees to indemnify A against any and all claims related to B’s actions. Then C is free to try to recover damages from A but B is legally obligated to intervene and defend A from C. This could mean that, if C recovers any damages from A, B is obligated to reimburse A for that amount. IANAL but a lawyer once told me that such an indemnity clause would probably hold up unless it could be shown that A was negligent in some way and the negligence led to C’s injury.
The car isn’t stolen. When someone makes a report of stolen property a routine question to ask is “did you give anyone permission to take it”. This sets up PC if the item is located in someone else’s possession. The OP allowed his friend to take the car. It isn’t stolen.
This is a civil matter.
Jurisdiction sure does matter- in NYC , a red light camera ticket is treated exactly like a parking ticket. It is written against the owner, not the driver, it’s not a moving violation and doesn’t go on anyone’s driving record. Even if the owner could prove he wasn’t driving, the ticket wouldn’t be dismissed.
This.
Years ago a friend was having a heated argument with his 17 year old son. The kid wanted to go cool off, so he walked out of the house and drove off in his dad’s car. Dad called the local police and reported his car stolen.
He thought they’d pull the car over, realize the driver was his son, and bring his kid home. He never thought that his son would be thrown to the ground, handcuffed, booked, etc. He eventually got his son back, but their relationship, which wasn’t all that great, got worse.
You will need to do something about this. Maryland is not a state to play with the MVA, they can be a bit over the top.
I owned a motorcycle under my and my ex’s name. We divorced and I tried to have her name removed from the title, they would not do it because she had a different surname even with the divorce papers they would not take her off the title. I would have had to pay them extra, have my marriage license, AND her there. I didn’t do that and just left her on the title.
I sold a motorcycle over the weekend. Turned in the plates on Monday, for six months they kept coming back to me trying to charge me for having no insurance for one day but still having the plates. My insurance company helped out each time though. They told me this happens a lot in Maryland.
You should figure out a way to either get the car back, or get your money so you can get rid of the title.
That’s not the same. If I sell my car to a stranger I simply tell the DVLA and that absolves me from responsibility for anything he does with it. I also cancel my insurance because if he was involved in a collision without his own insurance, the third party could come after me.
It is not my responsibility to make sure that he (the buyer) does any of the things the law requires on purchasing a car. All I have to do is to make sure that I do all mine.
OK, more phone calls have been made.
The NC DMV has basically said “get the vehicle back if you don’t think you can convince him to get his own plates. Tell him clearly but take it no matter his response.” If there’s an equivalent of the “incomplete transfer of title” in this state, the person I spoke to has never heard of it (although she hadn’t heard of this document period, rather than just in NC). I need to surrender the plates to remove my registration- which would both leave him unable to get to work, and driving a vehicle that’s still legally mine but now obviously unregistered & likely uninsured; so that’d be a lot of work for a losing proposition. Also there’s the whole “he’s out of state” hassle to physically getting the plates.
The person I spoke to at the MVA (MD’s DMV) seemed mostly concerned with his getting a license, registration & plates ASAP, as he is a new resident in the state and that’s a mess of new laws entering this situation. They do have a handy bill of sale form I was able to download online for free, so at least one step here is easy. Their customer service representative & their website both make it seem like I need a notarized bill of sale turned in to the DMV before the sale is official. This seems significantly harder than expected.
I’m not sure if “just telling the DMV you’ve sold your car” actually does nothing, or if there’s some magic phrasing I’m missing. But it really seems that there’s nothing I can do without at least some interaction from the buyer to make the car no longer mine.
That said, a my partner was in a similar situation a few years back (“sold” their car to a friend and never transferred title because they never got the final payment, all in NC) had no troubles when their buyer totaled the car, aside from needing to go up and hand the scrap yard the title. The 'yard had already disappeared the plates by the time he got there, and there haven’t been consequences since.
It seems, with cars, if you change ownership arrangements in any way then the first thing you do is file the paperwork, regardless of your intentions. It seems like (in a deal between two private parties) the title holder MUST be the car holder also, at every moment.
If you don’t mind getting stiffed on payment because it was a relatively low-priced transaction anyway, you can be lenient afterwards. That’s your business.
Maybe it was a single-car collision, in which case there would have been no third party to sue your partner. Or perhaps the friend had insurance that covered the damages. Or maybe the friend wasn’t at fault in the collision. In any case, the fact that it worked out for your partner doesn’t necessarily mean it would work out for you.
Can’t you sign over the title and put yourself on their as lienholder?