Posted by Kevin on Thursday, November 03, 2005 at 9:55AM :
I just had to tell someone this great story. I thought someone'd get a kick out of it as it is PW related.
I just had the most wonderful trip to the RMV. I bet you've never heard that before! In fact, I may be the only one who's ever said these words in succession ever!
After a few years of procrastinating, I've been doing research between two state RMV's as to how to go about getting a title for my untitled WDX. After digging though requirements of each RMV, I discovered to my surprise that the original owner had supplied me with everything I would need in order to obtain one! Who knew! I was very surprised to say the least! But, I didn't get my hopes up until I could verify my findings with my RMV.
Originally, I found it odd to have only to have received old registrations from the previous owner and didn't think these would get me anywhere with my local RMV. But as it turns out, the prevous state didn't issued titles on vehicles until after 73' so a previous registration is a valid way to transfer ownership if filled out correctly on the back side of the registration. So looking though the several he had sent me, there was my name on the transfer with the date of purchase and his signiture! The truck really is mine!!
Fortunately, we have an RMV office right here in town. At lunch I went down to have a little chat with them expecting to be turned way needing some other piece of the bureaucratic puzzle before my ordeal was completely resolved (as it usually goes at the RMV). So, I explained my situation to them and showed them my legal transfer and the bill of sale. Hallelujah, these were the correct items I needed and nothing else!! Are you kiddin?!
The only snafu was that I hadn't completed the request for a title in the required amount of time from purchase date and sale tax would be calculated from the original date of purchase! Yikes! I had two women helping me as it was a slow afternoon, one of which walked away with my bill of sale and returned with a copy of the original and a bottle of whiteout in her hand. While I was tying my shoe, she handed me back the copy of my bill of sale on which the date had miracously changed and handed me the application to fill out for a title! Yahoo! Penalty avoided!
Now the only thing I needed was for the state to value my truck at $30,000 and get hammered with a huge sales tax. Who knows what they have for a blue book value of my truck, right?? Well, my truck happened to be registered in the previous state as a 1945 Dodge truck. So, in order not to create any unnecessary confusion or to get the process off track, I filled out the form exactly as it stated before and wrote YEAR: 1945 MAKE: Dodge MODEL: WDX. Now I don't know if this helped any but when it came time to calculate the sales tax, the woman called up HQ, and while waiting for what seemed an eternity, the person on the other end couldn't find any valuation for the vehicle on record. Needless to say, I hesitantly waited to see what that meant. She said it defaults to the purchase price of the vehicle. Fffeeeww!! $50 for the title, $50 in sales tax. I was so excited I could kiss her!
So all in all, a great day at the RMV! 4-6 weeks I'll be able to register and drive my truck legally. The PW Gods were with me today!
I just hope they're with me the day I go to get an inspection!
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