Roseville dead and junk cars: the three-day rule and selling

Why Roseville treats one parked car as a nuisance

The council leaned on state Vehicle Code 22660 when it wrote this rule. Its findings say stored wrecks tend "to reduce the value of private property, to promote blight and deterioration, to invite plundering, to create fire hazards". The section ends by calling such a car "a public nuisance which may be abated."

The 10-day letter

Section 11.20.391 sets out the letter. By registered or certified mail, Roseville sends a "10-day notice of intention to abate and remove". The car's owner gets one, and so does the landowner if the car sits on private land. Only a car stripped of every identification number escapes the mailing.

The clock runs from the mailing date. The form orders removal "within 10 days from the date of mailing of this notice". If that deadline passes, Roseville takes the car and charges the landowner "the costs thereof, together with administrative costs". So a landlord can get billed for a renter's dead car.

Asking for a hearing

Inside those same ten days, either owner may write to the police chief. A timely request gets a public hearing before the chief or a designee. With none on file, the chief "shall have the authority to abate and remove" without one. Once a car is gone, Section 11.20.393 gives the chief five days to tell the DMV.

Pushing it to the curb won't work

Section 11.20.190 reads: "No person shall stop, park or leave standing a vehicle upon any highway or public parking facility that is currently unregistered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles". Expired tags alone put a Roseville car in breach there. Registered cars face a state limit too: after 72 straight hours on one street, against a local rule, a tow is allowed. Already towed? Read towed or impounded.

Placer County has no title counter

Titles are not a Placer County matter; California's DMV handles every one. Sign the certificate of title, get any lender of record to sign as well, and give it to your buyer to file. DMV's steps for Roseville sellers never call for a notary. A Roseville seller sends REG 138, the DMV release of liability, within five days, by mail or on dmv.ca.gov/nrl. Tickets dated after the sale stop being yours once DMV records it.

Ordinary plates ride along with a sold car. DMV's ZIP list, last revised in 2011, puts parts of Placer in the biennial smog area, yet smog rules simply skip a car sold for dismantling. Title lost? Start with REG 227 and our junk car with no title guide. Other statewide points sit on the California page.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or send the form. Tell us about your Roseville car. Around Roseville, we can load it at a home driveway, an apartment carport or a repair bay. Rocklin lies 4.5 miles off and Citrus Heights 5.5.