Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.245.23] on Monday, June 20, 2016 at 14:42:37 :
In Reply to: Hmmmm posted by Clint Dixon [108.162.237.57] on Friday, June 17, 2016 at 13:25:32 :
There are two lines on the title forms. If you own the truck outright, you are both. If you finance it, the finance company is the lienholder (legal owner). When you bought it you signed papers in which they promised to release the lien once you paid it off.
Nobody in their right mind would buy a truck without getting clear (no liens) title to it unless they were indeed making payments, and then they would want a binding purchase-and-sale agreement so that if need be they could go to court, show proof of payment, show the contract, and get the lien removed in the event that the seller was a jerk or died or something and didn't do it.
One other reason for transferring "registered" ownership only is if you're lending a vehicle to someone for a substantial period of time and you want them to pay for the tabs and inspections and be legally responsible for wrecks, but you want to make sure they don't take it and sell it. It's a semi-friendly way of doing things. You put your friend on the title as registered owner, but you stay on as legal owner. That way it's still your truck and he can't sell it, but you're off the hook for any expenses and trouble he may get into (aside from maybe having your truck broken).
But as a ploy to prevent "flipping"? I don't see how it would work. Nobody would buy without clear title. You could try to get them to sign a separate agreement in which they promise to pay you 50% of the profit if they sell it within 5 years (or whatever numbers you come up with), but there'd have to be serious money involved to make it worth the hassle of enforcing, especially because unless it went through an auction or something, you'd have no idea what they really got for it.