Re: 1954 Packard Convertible

Posted by HH56 On 2023/11/1 10:44:25

I can only confirm what BigKev said. Getting my first Packard titled in my name was the proverbial nightmare even though I had all the paperwork and title was signed off by original owners.

Problem started because original owners had died and an intermediate seller who bought the car from their heir or representatives had owned the car for years and never transferred it out of the original owners names. Issue was because the original owners had signed off on the wrong line of the title document and since both had died, there was no way to correct that mistake. Heaven help you if DMV gets a form with a signature in the wrong place. In this case the owners signed on the legal owner line instead of the registered owner line. Apparently in California legal owner only means a bank or some such third party holding a lien on the car. The intermediate seller could not help because as far as DMV was concerned he never transferred so never owned the car and was just providing storage.

Resolving that issue and getting title transferred took months with registered certified letters to former addresses which had to be presented to DMV returned as not deliverable and unopened and finally providing a bond for the appraised value to be in effect for a certain amount of time.

Moral: Make sure the estate signs the title paperwork in all the right spots if you are relying on them to provide a clear title.