Selling a junk or dead car in Phenix City

What makes a car "junked" here

Phenix City's definitions are short and specific. A junked vehicle is "any vehicle missing some critical part, such as, but not limited to, wheels, engine, transmission, body, or chassis." The next line adds a test you can check from the sidewalk: "A vehicle will be classified junked if overgrown with vegetation." A car the grass has grown up around qualifies whether or not the engine is still in it. If that sounds like yours, see car sitting for years.

The code also defines a vehicle storage yard as any lot open to the weather holding "four or more inoperable motorized vehicles of any kind," or six or more working ones. Storage lots have to be fenced to the article's standard.

The seven-day rule at home

For homes and businesses alike, zoning Section 3.06 covers any car or trailer "without current license plates, or which are inoperable or otherwise disabled for a period of seven consecutive days." After seven days it may stay only if:

• it is "stored behind the front building line" and screened from the street and any neighboring homes, or
• it sits in "an enclosed accessory structure located completely behind the front building line."

The test for inoperable is broad. A car counts if it cannot run "in full compliance with the various provisions of the Code of Alabama." An expired tag alone fails that test.

Section 78-42 gives commercial and industrial owners ten days, once the chief of police has served notice, to clear a dismantled, wrecked or junked car. Repair shops keeping junked cars for parts must hold them behind a compliant fence. A car inside an enclosed building is outside the article.

Towing and the city's lien

Under Section 78-10, an unoccupied car left on a street or alley "at a place, in a manner or for a length of time prohibited" is an obstruction that police or the superintendent of streets may tow. The city then holds "a lien upon each impounded vehicle" for the cost of removing it, "plus such reasonable amount as may be charged by the depository for storing such vehicle." You pay that before release, unless the chief of police is "reasonably satisfied" the impound was improper. See towed or impounded.

Title offices and Alabama paperwork

Phenix City sits in Russell and Lee counties. Two offices we checked: 501 14th St. in Phenix City (334-298-7979), roughly a mile east of the town center, and 215 S. 9th St. in Opelika (334-745-9761), some 24 miles northwest, both measured as the crow flies. Plates and registration run through the county license-issuing office.

• No notary on the seller's title assignment.
• Certify the mileage; it has to match the buyer's application exactly.
• Names on the application must match the title exactly.
• Take off your plates. Phenix City owners may be able to shift them to a later car.
• A lost title is replaced for $15 through ADOR's Public Title Portal; see junk car with no title.
• Phenix City cars with no title can be sold to a recycler who files notice form MVT 5-18, if the car is valued at $1,000 or less and dates back 12 model years or more.

Alabama has no emissions testing.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or use the form; expect questions about mileage, the model year, make and model, whether it cranks, and the title. Pickup can be from behind the front building line where the code wants it kept, or from a repair shop's fenced lot. Opelika (24.8 miles) and Auburn (28.8 miles) also have pages; statewide rules are on Alabama.