Selling a junk or dead car in Santa Ana

Legally inoperable counts too

The zoning code's definition is short. An inoperable vehicle is "any vehicle, either mechanically or legally incapable of being driven on a public street or highway" (41-80). So a car with a good engine and no current registration can still be inoperable under city law.

Street rules beyond the 12 hours

The same Section 36-136 adds more limits:

• "No person who owns or has custody or control of any vehicle shall park or store such vehicle upon any street or alley for more than a consecutive period of seventy-two (72) hours," and the police chief may remove one that does.
• No repairs, dismantling or overhauls on a public street, apart from the narrow emergency exceptions the section lists.
• No parking on a roadway mainly to show a car for sale.

The abatement notice and hearing

Off the street, Chapter 16, Article IV declares "an abandoned, wrecked, or dismantled or inoperative vehicle or part thereof, on private or public property not including highways" to be "a public nuisance" (16-110). Under 16-117, the ten-day notice "shall be mailed by registered or certified mail to the owner of the land and to the owner of the vehicle." It warns that "upon your failure to do so the same will be abated and removed by the City and the costs thereof, together with administrative costs, assessed to you as owner of the land."

Santa Ana gives both owners those same ten days to demand a public hearing, run by the executive director of the planning and building agency or a designee (16-118). A landowner can send a sworn denial of responsibility instead of appearing, and Santa Ana treats it as the request. No request at all, and the city may proceed without a hearing.

Dismantling at home: three cars, then a junk yard

Santa Ana's business-license definitions say occasional dismantling by "owners who desire to dismantle not more than three (3) personal vehicles within any twelve (12) month period" isn't the business of an automobile dismantler. The same section defines a junk yard as any space of 200 square feet or more on a lot used to store inoperable vehicles or dismantle them. See part it out or sell it whole.

State rules come first, too. Before a Santa Ana car is pulled apart, its owner has the DMV mark it as Junk. If the car was taken apart first, there is an investigative service fee. Once the DMV lists it as Junk, the plates are returned to them.

Selling it whole instead

Selling whole skips all of that. Sign the title, and get any lienholder's signature too; the DMV's private-sale steps for Santa Ana sellers name no notary. REG 138 must follow within five days, either online or mailed. Regular plates stay put on the car. Since the buyer will be wrecking or dismantling it, Orange County smog rules don't come into play. The California page has the rest.

Orange is 3.7 miles from Santa Ana as the crow flies, Tustin 4.2, Fountain Valley 4.3 and Costa Mesa 5.2. Their pages: Orange, Tustin, Costa Mesa.

Getting an offer

Tell us about your Santa Ana car online or at (877) 421-6008. In Santa Ana we can collect it from a home driveway, a carport, or a shop bay where the repair stopped.