Selling a junk or dead car in Norwalk

Norwalk's notice, hearing and scrap date

Chapter 8.12 calls such a car "a public nuisance which may be abated." Its notice form tells the landowner to remove it "within 10 days from the date of mailing of this notice." Otherwise the city will do it, with the cost "together with administrative costs, assessed to you as owner of the land."

Norwalk's Director of Public Safety hears these. The property owner or the car owner may ask for a public hearing during those ten days. If no one asks, "the Commander of the Norwalk Sheriff's Station and/or the Director of Public Safety" may go ahead. The council may also name "licensed dismantlers, towing services or junk dealers" who can then enter private property to take the car.

Section 8.12.130 sets the earliest scrap dates:

• five days after the nuisance order is adopted
• five days after a decision notice is mailed, if Section 8.12.100 requires one
• 15 days after the City Council approves removal on appeal

"After a vehicle has been removed it shall not thereafter be reconstructed or made operable."

The Building Official's path in Norwalk

A second route is in Section 15.32.160.35, enacted under Vehicle Code Section 22661. Norwalk's Building Official notifies the California Highway Patrol "Not less than 10 days before the hearing." Within five days of a removal, the Building Official notifies DMV and forwards "any evidence of registration available, including registration certificates, certificates of title and license plates."

Two exceptions matter. A car "Stored or parked in a lawful manner on private property in connection with the business of a licensed dismantler; licensed vehicle dealer or junkyard" is left alone. And if someone dumped a car on a Norwalk lot, and the owner never agreed to it or accepted it later, the city does not bill that owner.

Norwalk seller paperwork

California handles titles at state DMV field offices; there is no county office for them. Sign the Certificate of Title, add a lienholder's signature if needed, and the buyer submits it. Norwalk sellers will find no notary step in DMV's instructions.

REG 138 goes in within five days, and after that, later tickets belong to the buyer. Back fees and penalties build up on a Norwalk car left unregistered for years, unless its owner filed a Planned Non-Operation (REG 102). See car sitting for years for more. Junked cars skip smog. Plates normally stay with the car and go back to DMV if it is recorded as Junk.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or ask online. Use the form to sell us a Norwalk car. Our truck can meet it at a driveway, carport or body shop in town. Bellflower and Cerritos are each 2.9 miles away, and Downey is 3.4. For state rules, see California.