Winter Garden: selling a car that no longer runs

How the city code reads a dead car

The same section defines "debris" as material stored outdoors, and its list names "inoperative or discarded machinery, vehicles, or appliances." Its list of nuisance conditions includes "abandoned iceboxes, refrigerators, or motor vehicles," and old scrap such as "motor vehicles, and parts hereof."

The code also reaches past the person on the deed. An "owner" includes an agent, an attorney, an executor, a personal representative or a trustee. It can also be a tenant whose lease makes them responsible for upkeep. That matters if you are settling a relative's estate or renting the house.

The definitions we have do not give a number of days for a car parked on private land. Check with Winter Garden first instead of guessing how long you have.

Time limits on streets and city lots

Section 74-106 lets police move a vehicle to a towing vendor's storage lot, at the owner's expense, when it is:

• on any street longer than 72 hours
• in a city-run off-street lot past 24 hours
• stopped on city property not meant for parking for more than 12 hours
• blocking traffic or creating a hazard with nobody able to move it

After such a tow, Section 74-108 says the owner gets notice under Florida Statute 713.78. Under that statute, a Winter Garden tow operator with a lien must send certified letters to the registered owner, the insurance carrier and any lienholder of record. The statute's clock for that letter is 35 days of storage on an older model, 57 on a newer one, and the bill grows all the while. Read towed or impounded if it has already happened.

A nearby title office

FLHSMV's Orange County service center is at 301 S. Rosalind Ave. in downtown Orlando, phone (407) 434-0312. From the middle of Winter Garden that is a 13-mile hop east, as the crow flies.

A paper title may never need that trip. On its face is a seller's block where you record the sale date, the price, the miles on the odometer, and who is buying and where they live. FLHSMV's own procedure says no notary stamps that block. Electronic titles are the exception: both parties show up at the counter, each with photo ID, and reassign it there while declaring the mileage.

Florida's rules once it is sold

• Plate: unscrew it before the car rolls off. It is yours to reuse on your next vehicle, though ending the policy that covers it means handing it back at a service center.
• Notice of Sale: HSMV 82050 must reach the state within 30 days, per Statute 319.22. It strips your registration from the car, which matters if the next owner gets into trouble with it.
• No title: a Winter Garden car worth less than $1,000, in its tenth model year or later, can qualify for a derelict certificate on HSMV 82137. With it, a licensed salvage outfit or a metals recycler can take the car, and its title history stops there for good. See selling with no title.
• Loan: any lien has to be paid and reported cleared by the lender first; until then the title cannot change hands.

Getting an offer

Reach us online or at (877) 421-6008. Winter Garden sellers can use our offer form. Our truck comes to a driveway, a lot near Plant Street, or the shop where it quit. Ocoee, Clermont and Minneola are the closest neighbors, and the Florida page covers the state rules.