error on CA car title

[dallas702]

What is the name of your state? NV.

CJ or one of you CA attorneys can probably clear this up quickly. My son and I bought '71 MGB from a man in Santa Cruz. After bringing it back to NV, doing a bit of necessary work to pass smog/be safe, and beginning the daunting task of registering the car....we found out through NV DMV that the title doesn't match the VIN. It's a single digit mistake that puzzles me because it makes the VIN too long for standard CA title/registration requirements. I don't know how it could have been missed for 10 years (as far back as we can trace the mistake).

We're trying to get it straight, but of course CA wants a piece of our leg for correcting THEIR mistake. I emailed the seller to let him know what has happened, and I "asked" that he take care of getting the title fixed. I implied in my email that he may have violated CA regs/statutes by selling a vehicle with a title that does not match the VIN. Of course, his answer was "...I bought it and registered it that way...".

Question: is the seller in violation, and is he liable for his transfer of a bad title? Cite please.

 

[cjbrown929]

Vin dilemna

Sorry I can't offer much more than a big ? over my head. The Reynolds and Reynolds software system at the dealership I worked at would not allow an excess amount of entries to be entered (of course, some older vehicles had far less #'s/letters) to prevent mistakes. Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that the state's system would lack this capability.


There are sites that explain how to decipher the vin; perhaps you can learn something there.

BTW, I graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1978. Beautiful place!

 

[dallas702]

CJ; UC Santa Cruz. Holy cow...how'd you make it ouf there without becoming a communist? I know you're not because you sell cars...and communists can't even build a car.

Anyway, I could swear I saw a statute posted here once regarding selling a car in CA with a "bad" title. Maybe CA doesn't consider a nonmatching VIN a bad title, but considering everything else they have laws against I doubt it.

 

[tryingtoplease]

CJ; UC Santa Cruz. Holy cow...how'd you make it ouf there without becoming a communist? I know you're not because you sell cars...and communists can't even build a car.

Anyway, I could swear I saw a statute posted here once regarding selling a car in CA with a "bad" title. Maybe CA doesn't consider a nonmatching VIN a bad title, but considering everything else they have laws against I doubt it.

Beep, beep, back the bus up! We are not communists in Santa Cruz! We're pot smoking radicals wearing sandals, tie dye & saying "Dude" a lot.

 

[dallas702]

....and all those dadgum surfboards.