How to sell a junk or dead car in Largo

The notice and its two clocks

Section 11-76 is the enforcement rule. It covers "any abandoned, disabled or inoperative vehicle or parts thereof" kept outside "a legally constructed fully enclosed structure," on private or public property. The written notice has to describe the car, say where it is, name the code section and give the date it must be gone.

From there the clock is ten days. After that, "the city or its private contractor may remove such inoperative vehicle" and store it for 30 days. You can redeem it in that window by paying "the reasonable and necessary charges for the removal and storage" and showing proof you own it.

A second offense moves faster. A repeat violation on the same property by the same owner or occupant, "occurring within 180 calendar days," drops the time to comply "from ten consecutive days to five consecutive days."

You can ask for a hearing. If you do, the city may not remove the car until the code enforcement board sustains the violation "and five consecutive days have elapsed" from the date its decision is served.

Streets, sidewalks and for-sale signs

Section 11-75 also says: "No person shall knowingly leave any inoperative vehicle on any street, right-of-way, alley or highway within the city." Section 11-78 adds that no vehicle may be parked so that any part of it blocks a public sidewalk.

That section has a rule worth knowing before you try to sell a car yourself. In the front setback of a single-family, mobile home, duplex or triplex lot, you may not park "any vehicle of whatever type displaying a 'for sale' sign and which vehicle is not titled to the owner or occupant of the premises." Selling a relative's dead car off your lawn breaks it.

Title, plate and the no-title route

Largo's closest county motor vehicle office is in Clearwater:

• 29399 US Highway 19 North
• Suite 100
• Phone (727) 464-7777

It is roughly 9 miles due north of central Largo, measured as the crow flies.

Lost the title on an old car? Florida offers a way out. Form HSMV 82137 creates a derelict motor vehicle certificate. With it, an owner holding no title may sell to the two kinds of buyer the form names: salvage motor vehicle dealers and secondary metals recyclers. The car has to clear both bars: valued at under $1,000, and aged ten model years at least (its model year is year one). You turn the form in at the tax collector's office. Once sold this way, the car can never get a title again.

Keep the plate, or bolt it onto another car. Planning to drop the policy that goes with it? Then hand the plate back at a service center. Within 30 days, the HSMV 82050 Notice of Sale takes your name off the car. A car totaled for water damage has to carry a flood brand before it is sold; see flood damage.

Getting an offer

Online or by phone at (877) 421-6008, give us the basics. Start with the model and year, then the odometer reading, then whether it cranks and where the title went. We pick up from driveways, carports and mobile home lots. Junk car removal covers pickup day. Clearwater is 4.9 miles away and Pinellas Park 5.3. For statewide rules, see Florida.