Selling a junk or dead car in Hialeah Gardens

Where the code puts an inoperative car

The zoning chapter follows the same line. Section 18-121 calls a junkyard "a parcel of land on which waste material or inoperative vehicles and other machinery are collected, stored, salvaged, or sold." An automobile wrecking yard is a place for "the storage, sale, or dumping of dismantled or wrecked vehicles or their parts." Both are land uses the city zones for. A house lot is neither.

The sections quoted here do not give a countdown for a car sitting in a private driveway. Hialeah Gardens may have other rules on that, so call the city before you assume you have time.

Work trucks and vans at the curb

Here the code is blunt. Section 50-32 makes it "unlawful to park a commercial vehicle on any public property" in the city, and it bans overnight and weekend parking of one there outright. Section 50-33 adds that a disabled commercial vehicle may not "remain parked on public property overnight or over a weekend." A dead box truck or cargo van left out front breaks both.

For a private car abandoned on public property, state law fills in. Florida's abandoned-property statute has an officer tag it with a notice, starting a 5-day window, and when they pass the car can be taken away and disposed of.

The Miami title office

FLHSMV's Miami-Dade counter sits at 200 NW 2nd Ave in Miami; the phone is (305) 375-5448. Hialeah Gardens to that counter is roughly 12 miles southeast as the crow flies, a long trip you can often skip.

Florida does not want a notary on this sale. Your section, on the title's front, wants the buyer identified with a home address, plus the odometer figure, the agreed price and the day you sold. A loan still printed on the title blocks the transfer until the lender clears it and reports that to the state.

Keep the plate, file the notice

The tag comes home with you, not with the car. Bolt it onto your next vehicle. A service center takes it back only when you relocate out of state or let its insurance lapse on purpose.

Inside 30 days, tell Tallahassee about the sale with HSMV 82050. Your parts of that form are sections 1 and 3, and the buyer can leave the signature line blank. Once it is filed, your registration no longer follows the car. Our page on what to do after you sell walks through it.

When the title is gone

A missing paper title has to be replaced before a normal sale. An old car has a second route. The state's derelict paperwork (HSMV 82137) fits a car ten model years or older with a value below $1,000, and lets it go only to a licensed salvage dealer or a metals recycler. Nobody can title it again afterward. More in selling with no title.

Close by

Miami Lakes is 2.9 miles away, Hialeah 3.6 and Doral 5.0. For statewide rules, see Florida.

Getting an offer

Ask online or ring (877) 421-6008. Year, make, model and odometer miles get us started; then say if it cranks and whose name sits on the title. Our driver goes to wherever it is stuck, be that your own driveway, a space at work, or a repair bay where the mechanic quit on it.