Could I get in legal trouble over an unregistered gifted car title?

[Shynicole22]

My than Boyfriend gift me with a car 4 years ago, he paid with cash. I signed the title, got it notarized. My boyfriend took it to the owner (not really) to get it signed. He signed it. But never gave me the title back. I took a picture of the copy with my signature, his signature, and notorized... I was excited because I finally had a car and I had a child and one on the way. This was my first time signing a title, so it was new to me. I'm so stupid. We was going to meet him at the DMV so we can get it registered. But he said another time. We was planning to move to another state. The dealership gave me 30 day temp tags with my insurance... Until I can get it registered in a different state. So we drove down... I tried to get it registered but we didn't have any luck. The owner of the car called me saying I stole his car and he was trying to get money out of me, which was the biggest lie. Than later apologized. I found out that he never registered the car before me. He never owned the car. The car been sitting in the yard for years with a lot of problems. Not sure if it was a lemon, but the junk yard took it. It's gone. I couldn't drive on the streets because it was not registered. Could I get in bad trouble, my anxiety is up there today. I know this was years ago. But I get bad anxiety. It's making me really depressed because I feel like I made a dumb mistake trusting people. Or is this just my Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

[WindAtMyBack]

Much of what you are saying is confusing and contradictory. But the answer is no, you won't get in trouble.

Don't confuse registering a car with a title transfer. The title transfer changes ownership of the car. Registration is a separate process that allows you to drive it on the roads.

When you buy a car ( or given one ) you have to transfer title to your name within a certain period of time. If you don't do it on time it's a tiny fine, but not anything you can actually get in trouble for.

In NC, from what I've read both the buyer and seller need to have their signature notarized. I've bought and sold cars in several states and never heard of the buyer needing to have their signature notarized.

You also need an odometer statement. This is for liability reasons. If the odometer reading is 50,000 when you buy the car, and it gets in a wreck when it has 56,000 on it, then the new owner is liable, not the old owner. So you can't claim it wasn't your car at the time of the wreck. So make sure the odometer reading is accurate. Don't even round it off. That is especially important for the seller.

If you sold the car to a junk yard, they won't take it unless they have a proper title. So I'm not sure how that happened without a title. Even a junk yard needs to have proper ownership of the car.

It sounds like the seller "floated" the title. This means they never transferred the title to their name. This is extremely common for wheeler dealers who are buying and selling cars out of their home. They buy a car then resell it at a higher price without putting the car in their name.

They don't transfer the title for two reasons. First, it's illegal to buy and sell more than a few cars a year without a dealer license. So if they officially transfer the title on too many cars they can get in trouble for dealing without a license. The other reason is cost. They are buying and selling to make a profit. Transferring the title costs money and has sales tax in most states. That eats away their profit. They can also get in trouble with the IRS for not reporting the profit they make on the car.

Floating a title is illegal. The buyer won't get in trouble for it, but the seller who floated the title can. There are thousands and thousands of people doing this, but it's illegal.

For the license plate, it depends on the state. In some states the plates stay on the car. So when you sell the car, the plates go with it. In states where it stays with the car, like California, an old car from the 1960s can still have the original plates on it.

In other states, the plates stay with the person. So when you sell a car, you should take the plates off. If you get another car, you can put the plates on the new car. When you register the car, you can transfer the old plates or get new ones if you want. They will probably ask which way you want to do it.

[Telekinetic-Potato]

Titles can be a pain in the ass. Some states are very strict. Like anything that looks like a correction is an opportunity to need to get a new title.

And some states make you start over by getting a bill of sale from the origional owner after 3 months or something. If you've touched that title and haven't gotten everything handled then you'll need to find a way to get a new title which in this case will be very time consuming.

[Nikki1989]

You can get into legal trouble over an unregistered gifted car title, but it depends on what exactly happened, who is listed as the legal owner, and whether the transfer was ever properly completed.

[Anonymous]

You haven’t figured this out on a month?

I forgot to take the plates off the car?

[Shynicole22]

Different situation...

[DryGermanGuy]

Enough with the nonsense. If it was years ago, who would care enough for legal trouble?

[DarKnight36]

Police checkpoints will cause major problems. Be meticulous about these matters and ensure everything is legal.

[Anonymous]

If all this happened years ago and you didn’t get in trouble then, you should be fine

[slatyb]

Forget about it. It's over.