Selling a dead or junk car in Brentwood

The cost of leaving it

Vehicle Code 22523 reaches cars dumped on a highway and cars left on someone else's property without permission. The fine is only part of it. Say a towed Brentwood car sits unclaimed. The last registered owner then gets an infraction citation and pays any amount the lien sale fell short. The only escape is a report of sale already on file, and that is the job of the release of liability described below.

How quickly a cheap car disappears

Vehicle Code 22851.3 moves fast for abandoned cars valued at $500 or under:

• Brentwood posts a notice 72 hours ahead, except for cars valued at $300 or less removed under 22669(d)
• the Brentwood owner hears about it within 48 hours
• a hearing can be requested for 10 days
• disposal is allowed once 15 days pass from the notice

The moment a Brentwood tow yard has the car, Civil Code 3068.1 grants it a possessory lien. When a Brentwood yard holds a car worth $4,000 or less, it has 15 days from when the lien attaches to begin the sale. Towed or impounded covers that stage.

Brentwood's own ordinance

Brentwood's Chapter 8.30, Junk vehicles, sets a ten-day limit. It is "unlawful and a misdemeanor" to leave a car "in an abandoned, wrecked, dismantled or inoperative condition upon any private or public property not including highways within the city for a period in excess of ten days," unless an exception in the code applies.

Brentwood mails notices of intention to abate and remove before it takes a car. The landowner or car owner may ask the city clerk for a public hearing "within ten days after the mailing" of them. The hearing covers removal and "the assessment of the administrative costs and the cost of removal."

If no one in Brentwood asks for a hearing, the car may go to a scrap yard or dismantler's yard "ten days after mailing the notice of intention to abate and remove." With a hearing, the wait is five days from the order naming the car a public nuisance, or five days from a mailed decision notice when the code requires one. So a dead car in a Brentwood side yard has ten days, not a season.

Paperwork that ends your responsibility

On the title itself, the owner signs and so does any bank still on it. DMV's seller instructions mention no notary stamp. A missing title means REG 227 has to come first.

In Brentwood, REG 138 is due within five days, filed on paper or through dmv.ca.gov/nrl. That filing is the report of sale that 22523 looks for, so it shields you if the next owner dumps the car.

If the buyer plans to take the car apart, no smog papers are needed. Standard plates go with the car to the new owner. For a fee, personalized and special-interest plates can go on your next car. After you sell lists the rest.

Towns around Brentwood

In a straight line, Oakley sits 4.4 miles off and Antioch 5.1. Pittsburg is 11.4 miles off, and Mountain House 14.6. The California page covers the state rules in one place, and junk car removal compares the ways to get rid of one.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or fill in the form. Got a Brentwood car to sell? Start on the form and we take it from there. Pickup can happen at home, at a repair shop, or on the shoulder where it quit.