Title a vehicle in TN with only a bill of sale?

[snowdad]

Good evening. Anyone here from Tennessee title an ex-military vehicle with a bill of sale only? I have a 2 Dodges and a Jeep and neither came with a title. I restored a Jeep in 2008 and went through a fairly short process but don't recall the details. I have heard that Tennessee has clamped down on these type transactions. Thanks in advance.
Phillip

[hbb]

Phillip

I have in the past made those things happen but the states are all changing there policies. I would go down to the local DMV and ask what would be needed,they may have you apply for a abandoned title,but Tennessee might have different laws so it will be hard to say. I would not get into the specifics of the vehicle with them until you have the info that is needed to make this happen.

hb

[Brett]

Phillip,

I got my tags and title with just a bill of sale, and it was a pretty poor excuse for a bill of sale at that. I went to the county clerks office to renew tags for my wife's truck, and just brought my bill of sale along to ask about it. The lady at the counter did a title search and found a record of title for the truck from the mid 80's, when the truck was registered to the cannon county civil defense( the last time it was registered. For less than $100 i paid my taxes and got antique tags that don't need to be renewed. The whole deal took about 10 minutes, and a week and a half later my crisp clean title showed up in my mailbox. She told me it was easier to title it as an antique auto first as there were fewer regulations, but once you have a title you can get regular tags for it.

Brett

[snowdad]

Thanks Brett and hb! Did it have to be road-worthy?

[Brett]

Phillip,

It did not have to be road worthy. Mine was actually torn apart at the time. The key is they have to be able to find some record of the truck in their archives for it to be easy. Otherwise you have to do the deal of posting an add in the paper for a while. I had to give pics of the truck to the insurance company to show that it was complete before they would insure it though. It really is a pretty painless process

Brett

[Tanner]

Title question comes up frequently on various forums...

In NC, there is a process called 'Title By Bond'; you can read about it here... http://www.garbee.net/~cabell/titlebybond.htm

I'd tend to believe that most states would have a similar process available -

'Tanner'

[snowdad]

Talked to a county court clerk yesterday and she said she does older vehicles all the time. You will have to have a bill of sale signed by both parties, the address and phone number of the seller and the VIN needs to be on the bill of sale. Vehicles older than 30 years are quite easy to do according to her. I will post my experiance in detail for anyone who has a problem in Tennessee and what procedure to follow. If you have a problem with your county court clerk, you can PM me and I will give you the county clerk that would be willing to do it. Only thing is you will have to pay the sales tax to this county. County clerks are not all the same in each county.

[spookymyo]

You guys should join the MVPA. They have all the info you could ever need on registering, insuring, and titling all kinds of militray vehicles. There's a whole lot more benefits too.