Selling a junk or dead car in Bloomington

Bloomington's own code did not turn up

Bloomington's vehicle ordinances were not available online when we looked, which leaves state law as the guide on this page. Bloomington might set local rules with tighter deadlines. Read its code before you count on any date on this page.

65 ILCS 5/11-40-3 is the statute Illinois towns work from. It hands each municipality an option: pass an ordinance calling inoperable cars a nuisance when the public can see them, whether on public or private land, fine owners who ignore it, and let police haul one off 7 days after the town's notice. No town is bound by it until it adopts it.

In that statute, inoperable means a vehicle that has stayed undrivable for at least 7 days, or a longer span if the ordinance sets one, because the engine, wheels or other parts were taken off, or because damage or alteration keeps it from running on its own. Cars waiting on routine service or repair are excluded.

A car that died somewhere other than your driveway

Cars give out in grocery lots, at a relative's house, behind apartment buildings. Under 625 ILCS 5/4-201, law enforcement may take away a car abandoned on private property that is in public view and does not belong to the car's owner, once 7 days or more have passed.

What happens next turns on the car's age:

• 7 model years old or less. Left unclaimed by owner and lienholder 30 days after notice, it is auctioned publicly to a licensed parts recycler, rebuilder, scrap processor or the towing company (625 ILCS 5/4-208).
• Older than 7 years. The agency keeps it for at least 10 days while trying to locate the owner, and after that it can approve disposal as junk or salvage (625 ILCS 5/4-209).

Most worn-out cars fall in that second group, so 10 days is the figure to remember.

The Illinois paperwork for a Bloomington sale

Illinois' seller guide reduces a sale to five jobs:

1. Remove your plates.
2. Fill in the Assignment of Title on the certificate, then sign and date it. Each seller and each buyer prints a name and signs, and the odometer certification is completed. A notary is absent from the agency's seller steps.
3. Get the buyer's name and address on paper.
4. Write a bill of sale, putting the price and the date on it.
5. Mail off the Notice of Sale.

For step 5, use the stub at the foot of the title. If yours has none, the Seller's Report of Sale, VSD 703, can be downloaded from ilsos.gov. The form asks for it "immediately" and names no number of days. It goes to the Secretary of State, Vehicle Services Department, Record Inquiry Division, 501 S. Second St., Room 629, Springfield, IL 62756. Sending it in ends your responsibility for the car. The title, not this form, is what moves ownership.

A buyer may not legally drive on plates that belong to someone else, which is why yours stay with you and are the first thing off.

Where Illinois titles are handled

McLean County plays no part in titles. Illinois issues them at the state level: the Secretary of State's Vehicle Records Processing Division in Springfield works applications sent by mail, and the agency also keeps in-person facilities. We have not checked one in Bloomington; ilsos.gov lists them. Once the car changes hands, the buyer gets 20 days to retitle it and pays a $165 title fee, plus the applicable tax form.

Missing title, a lien, or a car fit only for scrap

Replacing a title that was lost, stolen or mutilated takes form VSD 190 with its Duplicate Title box checked and a $50 fee. The state turns down a duplicate request within 15 days of an original title, or within 30 days after a previous duplicate. More on this in junk car with no title.

For a car with no road left in it, Illinois has the junking route. Whoever holds the junk vehicle hands in the title within 15 days together with an application for a junking certificate, and that car never gets a title again. With no lienholder on record, the title need not be handed in for the certificate. Anyone may receive a junking certificate by assignment.

Normal and the rest of central Illinois

Normal is 3.3 miles off, so close that maps blur the line between the two. Straight-line distances to our other central Illinois pages: East Peoria 33.0 miles, Pekin 35.0, Peoria 38.9, Decatur 42.9 and Champaign 44.4. The Illinois page holds the statewide rules.

Getting an offer

Bloomington sellers can call (877) 421-6008, or use the short form on this page. Our truck goes wherever the car stopped: a garage, a curb, a shop's back lot. Once it's gone, after you sell covers the plates and the insurance policy.