Selling a junk car in Cutler Bay

A dead car on a trailer is a trailer question first

Plenty of stalled projects end up on a car trailer. Cutler Bay's Section 3-153 files "trailers or utility trailers less than 20 feet in length" under Category 2. In a residential district, "only one Category 2 vehicle may be stored or parked", and it has to be "within an enclosed garage or behind the front building line within a completely enclosed, opaque fence, screening wall or landscaping six feet in height". So a car parked on a trailer in plain view of the street can break the rule even though the car itself is never named.

Keep that trailer, and the home may hold just one Category 1 vehicle on top of it. Category 1 means a pickup, van or SUV carrying lettering or an emblem for a business.

When the car quits in a town park

Section 22-50 says "no person shall park a vehicle any place on park property other than in the designated facilities". Police and park staff can point you somewhere else when conditions call for it. If your car dies at a park, get it into a marked space or have it hauled out.

What Florida law adds

With no local clock in the text we read, these state rules are the ones to plan around:

• Public property, 5 days. If a car is wrecked or will not run, sits on public property, and nobody can tell whose it is, an officer posts a notice. The owner then has 5 days before the car is removed, and the agency may keep it or sell it at public sale.
• Towed from private land. A car towed without the owner's consent must be stored within 10 miles of where it was picked up in counties of 500,000 or more, and within 15 miles in smaller ones.
• Storage liens. When a tow operator has a lien, it must mail a certified letter to the registered owner, the insurer and any lienholder. The statute's timing runs 35 days after storage for an older model and 57 days for a newer one.

A car already on a tow lot has its own steps; see towed or impounded.

The title, the plate and the notice

One Miami-Dade office we looked up is at 200 NW 2nd Ave, Miami, phone (305) 375-5448. In a straight line it's about 16 miles northeast of central Cutler Bay. The county may have others too.

A paper title has a seller's area on its face. Write in who is buying and their address, the miles showing, what the car sold for and the sale date; Florida wants no notary stamp. In Cutler Bay, file the Notice of Sale, HSMV 82050, within 30 days of selling. You complete Sections 1 and 3; the buyer may sign but doesn't have to. Filing it pulls your registration off the car.

The tag is yours, not the car's. Take it off and put it on another vehicle if you like. Cancelling its insurance or leaving the state? Hand it back at a service center. With no title at all, read selling with no title before you call anyone.

Getting an offer

Selling in Cutler Bay? Call (877) 421-6008 or start with our offer form. A driveway, a park lot or a repair shop on US 1 all work as pickup spots. If you live closer to the bay's north end, see Palmetto Bay, 3.3 miles off; Homestead is about 10 miles away. Statewide rules are on the Florida page.