Shipping car across state lines to unreliable family member (not my idea

November 9, 2019 10:26 AM

A member of my family is shipping a car across state lines to their daughter who is not reliable. In order to ship the car to Daughter State Y, the car has to be registered and have plates in Home State X. Last time my family member shipped a car to this daughter (yes, second time), daughter did not register the car or get plates in Daughter State Y. All of the tickets and toll bills etc. ended up eventually routed to my family member who paid them.

What steps can my family member take to un-register the car in Home State X and/or seek new registration in Daughter State Y? (I live in Daughter State Y if that's relevant, although several hundred miles away.) (Let's all agree this is a bad idea; assume the car shipping is happening.)

posted by ClaudiaCenter to Travel & Transportation (13 answers total)

This is entirely dependent on jurisdiction and can’t be answered without knowing the states involved.
posted by furnace.heart at 10:38 AM on November 9, 2019

Daughter State is California where I live. Home State is New Hampshire where I grew up.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 10:47 AM on November 9, 2019

Family member could ship the car to the daughter's location but in your name/the name of a local attorney. Then you/the attorney go to DMV, re-register the car, and release it to daughter.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:27 AM on November 9, 2019

Are you okay being involved in this? Is shipping the car to you where you could get it registered with daughter is a possibility? One of the more difficult things about car sales is that little period of time where the car has been sold/given to another person but that other person has not done the steps to take ownership of it.

In some states there is an official "Release of sale" type of document that you can file.I poked around the NH DMV website and could not find one but they do have contact information so I might call them and ask on Tuesday.
posted by jessamyn at 11:42 AM on November 9, 2019

Is someone being hired to deliver the vehicle? I would meet at the DMV and make it a condition of handing over the keys that the vehicle get titled and registered in her name. A Bill of Sale should be written up and she must be required to sign a copy for her and a copy to be sent back to NH.
posted by theora55 at 11:51 AM on November 9, 2019

The reason jessamyn can’t find any sort of release of sale document is that New Hampshire infamously has no way to notify the dmv that you are no longer the owner of a vehicle (the situation you’re describing has happened to several family members living in NH; my brother in law tried for YEARS to get released from ownership of a stole vehicle registered in NH while he was in CA, and NH had none of it), relying entirely on the new owner to reregister the vehicle. Some states have the equivalent of a “de-registration” process, but NH ain’t one of them. The only way to release ones self of ownership of the car is to have someone else actively take ownership.

Only real path out of this is to figure out a way to not release the car to the daughter until the CA registration process is complete.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:26 PM on November 9, 2019

However, removing the plates before shipping will get you closer to forcing the new owner to reregister it.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:29 PM on November 9, 2019

Apparently the shipping company requires plates? So delivering without plates is not possible. The answers here are really helpful especially about NH. It seems as though I should play a role in getting the car registered. Maybe fly to her city, go with her to DMV, and only hand over the keys when it's all done. I'll try to figure out how this might work.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 12:36 PM on November 9, 2019

Car might require a smog check before being able to be registered.
posted by Sophont at 1:21 PM on November 9, 2019

Please do a deep dive into CA's smog certification rules. The car will most likely need that before being registered, and you also need to be aware that CA's emissions standards are different than those of other states and this can definitely make it impossible to register a car here.
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:10 PM on November 9, 2019

I’ve had the same exact thing happen to me and what I was informed by my state DMV is that I can go to them and advise them that the car has been sold and that they would cancel the tags officially and I would no longer be responsible for anything that happened to the car. Make sure you coordinate, because next time they get their tags run by the police they will come up cancelled and cause them a problem if they don’t replace them. I’m in a different state, but perhaps your state has a similar process.
posted by Lame_username at 2:48 PM on November 9, 2019

PS This all sounds very annoying
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 10:40 PM on November 9, 2019

I really don't see a way to make this work without a third party effectively being the steward of the car to oversee that everything is taken care of as intended over the course of the transfer.

Unless you are comfortable being that steward, parent needs to do it themselves or hire someone who will. This is something rich people do. It is likely to be pricey. But so is shipping a car in the first place.

This all sounds very annoying
It is. This is not a particularly reasonable thing to do, especially given all the other constraints. This parent is enabling their adult offspring's irresponsible behavior and now allowing it to affect their extended family. It would be easier and probably cheaper to buy the kid a scratch-and-dent jalopy in CA that's already been smogged - title transfer/insurance (and responsibility for non-temporary plates) would then happen at the point of sale.

Failing that you're left with the above assignation of stewardship, from which I'd frankly run screaming.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:29 AM on November 10, 2019