british-cars
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Title and registration puzzler

To: Marcus Tooze <tooze@vinny.cecer.army.mil>, british-cars@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Title and registration puzzler
From: lupienj@wal.hp.com (John Lupien)
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 11:04:31 EST
Hi Marcus,

> Concerning the $100 Spitfire:
> All I have mangaed to get in the way of a title is a photocopy of a title
> which is for another Spitfire VIN!! I called the guy who is on the title 
>(lives
> in Mass.) and he was quite scared of me until I assured him I wasn't the 
>police
> or a lawyer (??!!??). I just wanted some general info concerning the car...
> and he said he owned a couple of them...thats about all he told me.

You have a problem. Are you trying to register the car in MA? If so, good luck
to you! Do you have a bill of sale with the appropriate VIN and the seller?
The next thing to do is to go to the MA RMV and get the VIN searched. This
costs a couple of dollars, but it's the safest move. The car may, after all,
be stolen - you have no evidence to the contrary... Once you know who the
last registered owner was, you need to seek them out and get a copy of some
piece of official MA documentation that indicates they owned the car. Then
you need to show a paper trail between them and the person who sold you the car.
Does all this sound a bit on the ridiculous side? Welcome to Massachusetts!

IL may not be that hard on you - perhaps just being able to show a copy
of registration info will suffice. Note that only recently has MA started
requiring a title for all cars - formerly (as was the case for the $50 Porsche
I just registered title in) there were no titles for cars predating (I think)
1974, and no title is available on such cars unless they were newly registered
sometime after 1987 (I think). So the "you must show the previous title" line
is bogus - there may have never been one.

Being, as I am, in MA, if you need help with this, let me know.


-- 
---
John R. Lupien
lupienj@wal.hp.com


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>