Does anyone know how to go about getting a title for a classic in my state? I contacted the DMV and they said I need a title or registration to get a title in my name!!! (Hellooo... I'm applying for a title dumb*ss...) I have a bill of sale and my car has a VIN. Do I need a titling service or do I have to start selling my organs on ebay to pay for a "historical document" to a '53 Pontiac sedan delivery?
If you have a title from another state, then the RMV seems to be only concerned that you have paid sales tax. If you can prove that you paid sales tax, even in another state, then the process is smooth and easy. I have also done it with an old New York registration slip, but the registration was in my name. Again, no problem if you have paid the sales tax. They did accept a sales tax receipt that was dated from 1976 on one vehicle that I registered. If you do not have a title or a registration, then my experience may not apply. Good luck
You will need a old registration and bill of sale from the previous owner ( as long as it was never titled in mass and never had a lean on it) . The rmv here is the hardest in the country!!! In some cases the state police needs to verify the vin#. the other routes to go would be, If you know a used car dealer he can apply for a title with a special form (licenced dealer) or if you know someone in new hampshire they can register it there and sell it back to you on paper ( Pain in the rear ) There are title companys, I have never used one so don't know much about that? Best easiest route is to search out a used car dealer! People at the RMV will have you chasing your tail till you want to burn the car!!!
Sounds like he just has a bill of sale, which would be fine in New York, but not in MA. You might see if you can scare up NYS DMV forms MV51 and MV51-B (you can probably download them in PDF format from the NYS DMV website), do what you have to do to get them filled out, and see if your RMV will accept those. They're New York's forms for transfer of ownership of a vehicle with no registration. In New York, you only pay tax when you register the car, the car could change hands 100 times and if guy 101 puts it on the road, he pays the tax. I don't know how MA does it, I know some states tax cars like NY taxes land (IE you pay taxes on it every year), I hope Governor Taxerson doesn't catch onto that one.
I literally just resololved this problem a couple days ago and made a post in the MA social club. Here is the cut and paste: WHY THE MA RMV SUCKS!: I have an awful experience at RMV (no way...lol) to share. My Merc was purchased from a great guy in Princeton, MA. He got it from the original owner down the street 20 years earlier. As the story goes all too often, it sat outside for those years and he never got to restoring it. To make a long story short, the car had never been titled because of its age. When the guy i bought it from got it he never reg'd/titled it either. So here i am third owner needing to title the car for the first time. I knew this going into this, but the seller told me we'd work together to get this all legit. He even let me take the car and pay him when i got the title. So i first went to the RMV with an RMV-1 form (for title only) and a notorized bill of sale from the seller. REJECTED. Apparently I need a TV-6 form (VIN Inspection) filled out by an officer AT A POLICE STATION. I told the woman at the RMV that the car has no engine and is not road worthy, how do i get it to the police station? Her answer: "Tow it." I parked my trailer for the winter with my race car in it with no intentions of moving it till spring, so it was a bit difficult to get to. Luckily the seller knows a local cop that ended up coming to my house and filled the form out right in my garage. Another great guy. Trip #2: To the RMV with the prior documentation and the new. Same lady. "Going to have to fax this to boston and see if they think this is enough info to title it" Wait at the RMV for 3 more hours....no word. Tells me to come back the following day to check if she heard anything. I asked if i could just call periodically and she said she didn't have a phone....though there was one right next to her....hmmmm. Go back the following day. She told me it got kicked back by Boston because the Bill of Sale didn't have enough info on it. I go see the seller, we make up a new bill of sale, get it notorized AGAIN, and off to the registry i go. Faxed to Boston. Returned a day later to find out that it was finally approved! Great! I get a title, and i can go on with this restoration. Well i brought a blank check with me figuring it would be $50 for the title and about $25 in sales tax (based on 5% of the selling price). She comes back and says the RMV deems the car worth $8350! I flipped out. I told her the car has no interior, no engine, no trans and has sat outside for 20 years. She said i had to pay to get a title. I reluctantly wrote the check for $467.00. She said i could submit an abatement form to the IRS with pictures and doc's showing the car isn't worth that. UGH i'll never see that money again. Anyways....thats my story. WHY DOES THIS STATE SUCK SO BAD? If you need any help, i am a pro at this now. I will be happy to help. Let me know! -MercMan
I have a 38 Chev pickup. See avatar. That is me and my pickup in 1957. I have owned it since 1956. All paperwork has been lost. They tell me I'm "out of luck." They won't do anything. Apparently all I have left is to go through a title service and pay the outrageous sales tax. In 1956 there was no sales tax, no titles. Wonderful state. I've been told there are records in Boston where they can look it up. They won't bother.
holy ordeal mario! I knew you had to pay taxes on what the state thinks your car is worth (been that way over ten years now) but I didn't know about having to have a cop fill out a vin inspection form. what information needed to be on the bill of sale?? I bought my 32 in 1994 and didn't get the bill of sale notorized. looks like the RMV used NADA low retail value on your merc. low retail value on my 32 is $27k. i paid $500 for the body and frame! It did come with a 1960 homebuilt title though. This would make the taxes less and the registration easier. Kinda cool because it proves the year it was first built and I can run 1960 plates but kinda sucks because it's really a 32. What would happen with insurance etc. another one of the pitfalls is the pre 49 fender laws.
Heres the procedure I am going through to title a car in Mass without getting totally fucked. It involves having a contact in New Hampshire where they don't title cars as old as ours. Step 1. Draw up Bill of Sale (aka bos) that sells car to friend in NH Step 2. Friend gets VIN verification form for NH RMV and has a friendly NH inspection station fill out. Step 3. Friend registers car in NH Step 4. Friend sells car back to you with new bos and NH registration in his name. Step 5. Bring Paperwork to friendly Mass auto dealer and have them officially sell the car to you. I'll explain why in a minute if you don't have a friendly Mass auto dealer go directly to step 6. Step 6. Go to Mass RMV and register your car. Mass will now title it. You will have to pay Reg fee, title fee, excise tax and sales tax on A1 primo condition value regardless of your cars condition, unless of course you were able to do Step 5 then you pay sales tax on whatever your friendly dealer sold it to you for! Step 5 is important a friend of mine just got slammed with a 900 dollar sales tax bill on his primered 29 Roadster Pick Up... OUCH! A smart person might notice that the car never needs to leave the garage for any of this. Now get to work and welcome to the Commonwealth!
I feel your pain. I too had to pay sales tax on the "book value" of my model A roadster, even though most of it was junk I pieced together and any new parts I had already paid sales tax on when I bought them. SO just because i bolted it all together into a complete car I got to pay sales tax twice (first on the parts then again on the complete car). B.S. Plus the book value was way more than the roadster is really worth. I too was told to file for an abatement but I just took my plates and got out of there quick before they changed their mind. Flash
Wow, so I better save my pennies for the taxes. I'm going to check into the title companies online a little bit more because I bought this car more than 2 years ago and I doubt I can get in touch with the seller again for more paperwork. There's only one thing you can count on in this state, Mass will empty your wallet faster than you can fill it...
The seller i bought the car from tried doing the NH thing with his son who lives there and they ran the vin and saw it didn't come back to his dad (my seller) and kicked it back. Believe me this started this past May and we JUST wrapped it up. I would try your luck at contacting the seller. I know it may have been a few years, but people usually don't move around too much. I tried one of the big title companies you see in Hemmings and when it came to MA they said any other of the upper 47 states they could help me, but MA blacklisted, according to them. Who knows. Believe me, i had thought about buying a rotted to death merc sedan with a good title and switch the VINs I was so desperate. If you can get a hold of the guy you bought it from, then from there I can tell you exactly what you need to do!
I had a similar experience to Mario with my '30 Coupe. I bought a shell and frame in Pennsylvania that came with a good title. Went to pay Sales tax and get a Title in my name, prepared to pay tax on $2500 as stated on the back of the Penn title. (Insert thumb on buzzer sound here). I was told the value was $8500 and the tax would be on that amount. I filed an abatement with one full page of what the car is missing and two sentences of what was actually purchased with a clear photo of the shell and frame. The reply 8 weeks later was that it had been reviewed, nothing would be changed and the decision was final. (Bend over here!) But I have my title in my name and that's a very good thing. FWIW, I used a title service to get a Title for a Triumph MC and it worked fine.
I just filed the abatement form! I told my wife that we'll probably never get any money back, but i couldn't sleep knowing i didn't try. My Merc in the condition i bought it in was a $1000 car at best. Along with the abatement form, i included pictures, copies of the bill of sale (notorized), RMV-1, and a valuation from a classic car appraisal book showing the car is worth no more that $1550 in its present condition of un-roadworthiness. I blinded them with documentation. Threw it all in a big manilla envelope and sent it out. I should hear something in the next couple of monthes, so i will keep you all posted.
Your story just added to my pessamism (sp.?) about get any sort of gratification out of this. Just remember that state people are doing you a favor by showing up to work every day.......at least thats their state of mind
Living in this state does give you some good stories though. About 2 years ago I got a call from a guy who had just bought my 64 Impala coupe.... that I had sold in 1993. I had moved twice since then, and he found me. Aparently I was the last owner who actually had the car on the road, and it had passed through a number of hands, landing in his. He wanted me to write him out a bill of sale saying that I just sold him the car, so he could use my registration to register the car...... Sorry dude, I'd love to help you, really. But saying I owned a car for 13 more years than I did.... eh, I don't think so. I felt really bad not helping the guy, but I figured some bad could likely come of that on my part. Pete
use nh or alabama they dont require a title on a vehicle 72 and older to get a ma title all thats required is a registration from a state that doesnt require a title on older vehicles
I agree with you Pete. Tough cookies. He needs to get a hold of the guy HE bought it from. If you say you owned it all that time, and someone got murdered in it 4 years ago....then someone got murdered in YOUR car Nice car by the way.... Are you right in Boston, or in the 'burbs?
I'm about to throw up! I figured it was tuff but are you kidding!!! Well I bought my Stude about 4 years ago off Ebay. This womans dad passed in 1986 and that is the last time it was registered. So the previous owneris dead, and I have the title and a copy of the death certificate, and the Ebay info(hopefully thatserves as a BOS). So, should I practice hoop jumping? I'm screwed aren't I?! Oh and I got it from Texas...
this is where you messed up. You are applying for registration to put the car on the road and the RMV values the car on the minimum value of the car in roadworthy condition regardless of the current condition. in order to convince them to lower the taxed amount you would need to show that a similar roadworthy vehicle is valued much less.
Any body know what happened with the Bill or Bills which were submitted to the Massachusetts legislature in 07/08 which was suposed to make titling of of old cars easier ? Steve
Quote from SEMA "In a flurry of last minute activity, SEMA model legislation (now known as H.B. 5194) to create a vehicle registration classification for street rods and custom vehicles was approved by the Massachusetts State Legislature and now awaits the signature of the governor before becoming law. H.B. 5194 defines a street rod as an altered vehicle manufactured before 1949 and a custom as an altered vehicle at least 25 years old and manufactured after 1948. The bill allows kit cars and replica vehicles to be assigned a certificate of title bearing the same model year designation as the production vehicles they most closely resemble. " I don' think this bill would make it any easier for us. It sounds like its mostly geared towards kit cars and would probably implement the same laws that apply to custom built motorcycles. If you've ever tried to get a blue tag for a custom bike you know what hell that can be. Proof of purchase required for each individual part, that means no way of proving you own a part you bought used.
I wasn't applying for a registration for the vehicle. Just for a title. If i were to register this, then i wouldn't quabble over NADA's valuation.
I've been sitting back watching this thread develope. I am in the process of titling my '52 F1. I have a good Mass title from the seller. I went to the RMV to pay the tax and apply for a title. I was handed a paper that said my truck was being taxed at average retail value. I paid $1000 for the truck. It is being taxed at $13,650. Tax and title was $734. I have had an appraisal done by a licensed mass apraiser and have taken 20 really good close up pics of the bad areas pointed out by the apraiser. I'll be filing an abaitment form as soon as I pay the tax. I don't expect to get any satisfaction from this, but you have to try. They seem to be trying to balance the budget on the shoulders of hobbiest. Something needs to be done.
Can I have some recomendations for title companies any of you trust. I would like to have a title before I do any more work to my car. I've heard horror stories about hot rodders finishing a car, going to title it and losing it to the original owner who said it was "stolen". I was considering Broadway Title.
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