Getting rid of a dead car in Glendale

Why the city cares

Chapter 10.48 opens with the council's reasons. Stored wrecks, it finds, "promote blight and deterioration," "invite plundering" and "create fire hazards," and they lure children into danger. So "the presence of an abandoned, wrecked, dismantled or inoperative vehicle or parts thereof, on private or public property not including highways" is declared a public nuisance. Glendale hands the job of clearing them to its Director of Community Development.

What the letter says, and what you can do

Registered mail carries the notice to two people, the landowner and the car's owner. Each is told to deal with it "within 10 days from the date of mailing of this notice."

Inside those same ten days, either one may ask Community Development for a public hearing. There, a hearing officer weighs whether the car qualifies as a nuisance and who should carry the administrative and removal costs. When nobody asks, Glendale goes ahead and seeks its court order.

After the order, the code allows disposal "by removal to a scrapyard or automobile dismantler's yard" five days later, or fifteen days after the council acts on an appeal. A firm holding a city contract or franchise does the hauling, and it may come onto the lot only with legal authorization in hand.

Selling it under California rules

Glendale has no say over titles; Sacramento does. Bring the signed title to a DMV field office or send it to PO Box 942869. In a private sale, you sign and the buyer turns the title in, and the DMV's seller steps include no notary.

A car parked for years often carries a registration debt. If no Planned Non-Operation was filed, expect fees and penalties covering each year it went unregistered. Our sitting for years guide goes through it.

Glendale junkers headed to a dismantler don't need a Smog Check. The standard plates usually stay put on the car, except that asking the DMV to record it as Junk means surrendering them. REG 138 has to be in within five days of the sale, sent through dmv.ca.gov/nrl or by post, and from then on tickets land with the buyer.

Neighboring cities

Burbank lies 4.6 miles off by straight-line distance, Pasadena 6.3 and South Pasadena 7.1. Alhambra is just past 9. Statewide rules live on the California page.

Getting an offer

Ring (877) 421-6008 or fill out the form. Tell us the year and make, the model, its mileage, if it still turns over, and what you have for a title. Our truck handles steep hillside streets, tuck-under apartment garages, and repair shops holding a car nobody came back for.