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OK, fine, we here in Montana are pretty weird. Frankly, the idea that a license plate belongs to the vehicle instead of the registered owner seems pretty weird to us. How can a vehicle "own" anything? What a strange concept! The private party purchase is no problem. The seller removes his plates, the buyer then has 40 days to drive with the signed title and/or Bill Of Sale until he gets the title transferred and buys (or transfers) plates. Very simple.
Dealer sales are even simpler. There are no plates on the vehicle. The dealer prints a temporary paper license plate and puts it on the vehicle. The dealer sends the paperwork to the DMV office at the county courthouse. The DMV office notifies the buyer that the paperwork is there, and he can make an appointment to complete the paperwork for title transfer and pay the fees to get or transfer the plates. Again, very simple (but time consuming).
In Alaska, the plate stays with the car, just like the VIN does. Nothing strange about it.
The buying process in Alaska is pretty simple. Dealer sends the paperwork to DMV and DMV sends plates and registration back to dealer. You can pick your plates up at the dealer or they'll send them to you. I always have mine sent to me, so no time consumed at all. Unless you pay in cash. Then the dealer gives you the Certificate of Origin and you can go to DMV yourself. Or you can let the dealer send the paperwork to DMV. Your choice.
That seems impossible. You must have driven it just on your farm property, or back dead-end roads.
It’s not impossible... You keep an eye on your rear view, stay in the right hand lane in case you have to make a quick exit & use side-streets. Obey ALL other traffic laws, back into parking spots & try to figure out how to spot the cruisers with ALR’s (not all PD’s have them in all units; they are expensive).
In Massachusetts, the plates stay with the owner. They are tied to your insurance info. When you sell your car, you transfer your plate to the next car. You have 7 days to transfer the registration to the new car. I've had the same license plate for close to two decades on 3 or 4 different cars.
Of course, each state is different.
Personally, if I was the OP, i'd throw the owner $50-75 or whatever is appropriate based on distance to drive the car to my house, and offer them a ride home. Then let the car sit there while you figure out the title stuff and get the car registered. It's cheaper than a tow-truck, and FAR cheaper than the ticket and impound fees if he gets stopped by an officer running plates and comes back that he's illegally attached plates. Here in MA that would be a HUGE deal.
Here in MD, the plates belong to the DMV so when you sell the car, you have a couple days to get the plates back to the DMV. They do NOT transfer with the car AND there are no private party temp tags you can get (dealers can sell 30 day temp tags, but the MVA won't sell them to a private party to get a car home with. You have to buy new plates.) So if you're buying acar private party in MD you're kind of screwed. I've just driven the car home with the title and bill of sale and risked getting pulled over (never have been, though). Or did like the guy who bought my BMW last week: brought a trailer to tow the car home on.
I will tell you how it all unfolded so you can have a laugh at my expense!
Got to the DMV, conducted our business rather quickly, (yes, transferring the title AT the DMV proved to be a fast and easy and cheap way to do it). Got a plate. Drove the guy home. Went back to the parking lot to discover that the car rental place had relocated 2 miles down the road. Drove there and turned in the rental car. Got a ride back to my car. Discovered that I no longer had the keyfob to my new car. Dumped my purse, searched all around...locked out of my brand new car! Called rental place, they said they would look for it. Called AAA. Waited at nearby Wendy's (it was too hot to sit outside). Rental place found keyfob on floor of rental car (I had hooked it to my lanyard). Said they would have it at the desk whenever I wanted to come by. Um, any chance you can bring it to me since I'm stranded and the only extra key is IN the car? And they kindly did. Cancelled AAA.
Four hours of my life I'll never get back but I got a good deal on a shiny gold car. It's so gold, I feel like I should have a gold tooth to go with it!
Here in MD, the plates belong to the DMV so when you sell the car, you have a couple days to get the plates back to the DMV.
Just odd how different the other states are.
In MA, you can actually WILL special plates to family members. You can't do it with regular random sequence plates, but if you have a low-number lottery plate (5 digits or less that you usually enter a lottery to "win" one for your car), you can actually reassign the plate to a family member. You can do it while alive as well, but the MA DMV has a procedure for reassigning a deceased persons plate to a family member. Some plates stay in the family for a long time if they are low-number, like a plate with just the number "1" on it.
If you have a Vanity plate, and want to take your car off the road for the winter, or sell your car but don't buy a new one right away (3rd or weekend cars for example) the MA DMV will hold your plate for up to 1 year. When you get a new vehicle to put it on, you claim "your" plate and get it back to put on the car.
I know this is off-topic to the thread, but it's just funny hearing how different states do different things. I have a lottery plate and a vanity plate and look at them both as my property. The lottery plate is in my will to go to my wife, or one of the kids.
Last edited by BostonMike7; 08-07-2018 at 07:44 AM..
No wonder people just go to a dealer and pay them $400 for title and tags.
I've never paid that much, and all 3 of my cars were bought at dealerships. The fees for titles and plates are set by the state DMV, not the dealership. I've also only ever had one set of plates, too, the ones that were put on my 1st car that I bought back in 2001.
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