The Importance of a Clear Title

Hammie came to us from a man on Craigslist who traded building a deck for a camper. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that before he could sell it to us, he should have re-titled the camper in his name.  When we bought the camper, there was so much else going on that Kyle didn't realize that it hadn't gone through the process of transferring the title.

When I finally made time to go to the DMV and get it titled and registered, this oversight became a major issue.

I waited for an hour for my turn at the window only to be told they could not transfer the title because it was not in the seller's name.  The woman helping me was agitated by my questions regarding what the next step was if we couldn't get it titled properly from the original owner, to the seller.  There is a myriad of paperwork with complicated instructions, that become even more complicated as you go through them and her best response was that we needed to go back to the seller and get it done right.

My concern was that it was a Craigslist sale and so what if we couldn't get it done correctly?  I wanted the big pile of paperwork, just in case, and she didn't want to have to spend the time to go through it with me.  It was incredibly frustrating and ended up with me in tears because I asked her to do her job and help me and she called the security guard over and told him she felt I had threatened her.  It was a nightmare.

I called Kyle and cried on his shoulder about how nothing with this camper was easy!  He assured me that he still had the seller's phone number and would call him and get this straightened out. Thankfully the seller is a super nice guy and he was willing to go to the DMV with Kyle the following morning to get the title transferred to his name.  They arrived just as the doors opened, only to be told that the title printing machine was down and they would have to come back the next day.

The following day, they arrived at the DMV again, were called to a window right away and began the process of getting the title put in the sellers name (the man who gave it to him had already signed the title).  Another snag arose when the woman helping them could not find a North Star Travel Trailer anywhere in their system.  Originally she though she was not going to be able to help them when she remembered another database she could look in and was able to print a new title.  The seller then signed it over to Kyle and it was done!

Lesson learned.  ALWAYS make sure the title is properly signed and transferred.