Selling a dead or junk car in Orlando

What Orlando treats as derelict

Section 58.1204 binds anyone "in charge or in control of any property within the City, whether an owner, tenant, occupant, lessee, or otherwise." Tenants answer for a dead car in an apartment lot just as owners do.

The test is whether the car is "in an evident state of extended disuse or neglect." The code lists signs an inspector may weigh:

• the car is wrecked
• vegetation underneath grows "as high as the vehicle body or frame"
• refuse or debris has collected under it, or it is used only for storage
• it is partly dismantled, or has no engine, transmission or other major visible parts

A missing tag or weeds alone do not settle it; then the inspector weighs "the totality of the circumstances." Repair and storage businesses holding a current city license get an exception with an end date: a disabled vehicle may not remain there "in excess of 180 days."

Do not part it out in the yard

Many owners plan to pull the good parts first. Orlando's code closes that door. Section 58.1204 says nothing in it permits "the disassembling, tearing down or scrapping of a vehicle," or letting "one vehicle to be scavenged or stripped for parts for use on another vehicle." Section 14.02, the city's property maintenance code, adds that inoperative or unlicensed cars "shall not be kept at any time in a state of major disassembly."

There is a zoning angle too. Under the zoning definitions in Section 66.200, keeping "two or more unregistered, inoperable motor vehicles" on a lot is one of the uses that make it a junk yard. A second dead car in the side yard is the point where a home starts to look like one on paper. Selling it whole, as it sits, avoids both problems. Our guide on parting it out or selling it whole runs the numbers people usually skip.

Street and city-lot clocks

Under Section 39.29, police officers, community service officers and parking enforcement specialists may remove a vehicle from any street or public property in these cases, among others:

• 72 hours on any one street, "unless during the seventy-two (72) hour period the vehicle has been removed from the particular street for a period of at least twelve (12) consecutive hours"
• 24 hours for a city-run garage, a meter zone, or a posted on-street space
• 12 hours for city-owned land that is not set aside for parking
• whenever it obstructs traffic or is a hazard and nobody able to move it is around

Section 12 of the city charter sets a separate test for the business section: a vehicle parked in one place there for 48 hours "without receiving the attention of the owner" may be considered abandoned.

Orlando also polices the tow trucks. Section 39.85 calls abandoned and immovable damaged cars "public nuisances and public emergencies," and every truck doing trespass towing in the city must display a sticker showing a valid city business tax receipt. If a tow truck shows up for a car you did not call about, look for that sticker.

The title office

The Orange County service center FLHSMV lists for Orlando is on Rosalind Avenue downtown, at number 301 South (ZIP 32801); the phone is (407) 434-0312. From the middle of town, the office is about 6 miles northwest, as the crow flies.

A paper title rarely needs the trip. Its face has a seller block headed Transfer of Title by Seller, which records the purchaser and where they live, the odometer, what changed hands and on what day, and the state's TL-11 manual confirms no notary signs it. Electronic titles work another way: seller and buyer show up together, each with photo ID, and the clerk reassigns the title and logs the odometer. Car still financed? The lender has to be paid off and has to report the release before ownership changes.

Plates and the notice of sale

In Florida the tag is the seller's property, not the car's. Unbolt it on pickup day and transfer it to whatever you drive next. Moving out of Florida, or ending the insurance that the tag is tied to? Then hand it in at a service center.

Last comes HSMV 82050. Statute 319.22 sets a 30-day window, and once it is on file your name comes off the car's registration, which helps shield you from civil liability for what the car does next. After you sell lists the rest.

Getting an offer

Start online or call (877) 421-6008 and give us the make, model and year, an odometer guess, whether the engine catches, and the name on the title. Our truck loads the car where it sits: an apartment lot near downtown, a carport in a neighborhood with an HOA, or a repair shop on its 180-day clock. Close by, there are pages for Winter Park, Kissimmee and Ocoee, plus the statewide Florida guide.