Selling a junk or dead car in Kailua

Plates come first

Three plate situations come up with a car that is leaving for good:

• Veteran specialty plates. Hand them in and pick up regular plates before the sale is recorded. The plate and emblem cost $5.50.
• Personalized plates. Transferring these follows its own process. If you are retiring a personalized plate, Honolulu lets you hold on to the front one as a keepsake, and the rear one is surrendered.
• Junking through the city. Honolulu's junk steps begin with "Remove the vehicle license plates". The plates go back with the paperwork.

What happens to ordinary plates in a private sale is a question for the county; ask when you file.

Junking a Kailua car through the city

The windward side is covered by the same free program as the rest of Oahu: a no-cost tow for a dead car, with old registration and fees cancelled for Honolulu residents. The plates come off first. Then fill in the junk form, and take everything, title papers included, to a satellite city hall visit booked through AlohaQ. It does nothing about loans, citations or criminal charges.

The county rule for street cars

Kailua is not a city. Honolulu's county code covers it, and section 15-13.8 deals with abandoned vehicles on streets or highways. The key line is this: "Leaving vehicles unattended for more than 24 hours constitutes abandonment within the meaning of this section."

For Kailua, that section also forbids leaving a car, or a trailer, abandoned on a public street or highway. Once a car is abandoned, the police chief or the customer services director may have it towed. Whoever left it must pay back the city's reasonable costs for the removal.

For a Kailua owner, this matters most with a car that quit on a residential street. Moving it onto your own property, or junking or selling it, keeps it out of this rule.

When a car sits too long

State law adds two more rules. HRS 290-8 allows the county to call a car "derelict" once it is missing a part or too damaged to run, but only alongside one of the further conditions the section lists. On private land, HRS 290-11 lets the property owner have an unauthorized car towed, at the car owner's expense, where a no-unauthorized-parking notice is posted.

Title office

One address made our list: 1041 Nuuanu Ave. Ste. A, Honolulu, with the phone (808) 768-4325, around 10 miles southwest of central Kailua as the crow flies. Oahu title work is booked through AlohaQ at satellite city halls.

Signing over the title

The title's Section A wants the mileage (only for 2011 and later model years), the date, and each owner's printed name and signature. Section B is reserved for a lienholder. Notarizing is optional but recommended. Your buyer needs the endorsed title, the last registration card and an in-date safety inspection certificate, and the transfer stalls without a current inspection.

The strip you tear off the top of a Kailua title is the "Notice of Transfer", numbered CS-L(MVR)53. Get it filed no later than 10 days out. Skip it and you could be fined up to $100. On file, it protects you if the buyer later misuses or abandons the car. After you sell has the remaining steps.

Nearby towns

Kaneohe is about 3.6 miles away, East Honolulu 7.6 and Urban Honolulu 8.8. Pearl City is about 14.2 miles off. Statewide rules are on Hawaii.

Getting an offer

Ask for an offer with the form or at (877) 421-6008. Mention the model year, make and model, approximate mileage, whether it runs, what plates it carries and the title's status. Pickup can be from a Kailua driveway, an employer's parking lot or a garage. Cars that refuse to start are covered in car doesn't run.