Posted by Fred Coldwell on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 19:13:16 :
In Reply to: nj dmv title nightmare posted by 74w300uteline aka steelballcowboy on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 11:24:26 :
In title states, ownership of a motor vehicle is represented by a piece of paper called a certificate of title. If you don't receive a duly assigned certificate of title from your seller, you did not receive legal ownership of the motor vehicle you paid for. It's as simple as that.
In your situation, Owner #1 still owns the truck because it is still titled in his name. Although Owner #1 assigned his certificate of title to Owner #2, Owner #2 never had the title transferred to him, so Owner #2 had nothing to sell to Owner #3, who in turn had nothing to sell to you.
Tell Owner #3 you want all you money back because he did not and cannot deliver legal ownership of the truck to you. The problem is with your seller, not with the State of New Jersey. The state's motor vehicle title laws are clear.
Your seller and his seller are trying to circumvent the law, perhaps because they didn't want to pay the fees to have title transferred into their names. That must be done in order for each of them to have legal ownership they can each transfer to their buyers. Good luck!
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