Selling a dead or junk car in Moorpark

Ten working days

The same section defines "proper notice" as a letter "requiring the correction within 10 working days of certified receipt of the letter." The code counts working days, not calendar days, from the day the certified letter is received.

When the city hauls it away

Chapter 10.12 is Moorpark's law on abandoned and inoperative motor vehicles, adopted under Vehicle Code 22660. Any car that is abandoned, wrecked, dismantled or will not run counts as a public nuisance under it, on public land or private, highways excepted. A few kinds of storage are excused, such as a car kept "in connection with the business of a licensed dismantler, licensed vehicle dealer, a junk dealer," or "when such storage or parking is necessary to the operation of a lawfully conducted business."

A public hearing comes first, on removal and on charging the administrative and removal costs "against the owner of the parcel of land." After an order, Section 10.12.110 sets the timing. The car can go to a junkyard five days after the order is adopted. If the decision had to be mailed, it is five days from that mailing. If an appeal upholds removal, it is 15 days after that. Two more lines make the result final:

• "After a vehicle has been removed it shall not thereafter be reconstructed or made operable."
• Within five days the city tells the DMV and sends along "any evidence of registration available, including registration certificates, certificate of title and license plates."

So a car the city tows can take its title and plates to the DMV with it.

Left outside someone else's place

The zoning definitions (17.08.010) describe an abandoned vehicle as one on public or private property without the owner's consent that "has been deserted for a period of 72 or more consecutive hours," or within 24 hours when the street is needed for cleaning, repair or construction. That matters if the car quit outside a friend's house or in a store lot. On top of that, state law bans leaving a car on someone else's land without their OK. The fine starts at $100 (Vehicle Code 22523). The same definitions keep tractors and farm vehicles that move under their own power on a working agricultural lot out of the inoperative category.

California title and plates from Moorpark

Ventura County plays no part in a title change; the state DMV does. Sign where the Certificate of Title asks for the seller, have any lender sign too, and hand it over. Filing it and the $15 transfer fee are up to the buyer. You have 5 days to send in REG 138, the release of liability. Smog is waived when the car is going to a dismantler. Standard plates go with the car. Vanity and special plates can come off and move with the owner. If the title went missing, REG 227 comes before anything else; junk car with no title explains it.

Around Moorpark

In a straight line, Thousand Oaks is 6.4 miles off, Simi Valley 7.5 and Camarillo 9.9. See California for statewide rules, and non-running car for selling one that won't start.

Getting an offer

Phone (877) 421-6008 or write to us online. Give us the car, its odometer number, if the engine catches, and who has the title right now. Pickup works from a paved driveway, an open side yard, or a lot by the train station.