Melrose Park junk-car rules, and selling yours whole

Five kinds of nuisance car

Section 10.52.010 starts plainly: "Any inoperable motor vehicle parked either on private or public property, shall be and is declared to be a nuisance." It names five types: inoperable, abandoned, hazardous, unlicensed and unlawful. Four of them:

• Inoperable: visible from a public way and undrivable for five days.
• Unlicensed: a car "not displaying license plates, valid license plates, a valid sticker indicating current registration," or the village sticker.
• Abandoned: any car another village ordinance treats as abandoned or towable.
• Unlawful: parked where a statute or ordinance bans it, with tow-away signs posted nearby.

The code also names a person to hold responsible. Whoever the car "is or was last registered" to is presumed to have abandoned or parked it, so selling it and mailing the Notice of Sale matters here.

From the driveway to the auction block

Section 10.52.020 makes it the police department's "duty" to have a nuisance car removed to a vehicle pound, using a garage or other agency for the towing. Once it is gone, police track down the owner's address and put in writing "the fact of such removal and impounding; the reason therefor and the place to which such vehicle has been removed."

The pound does not hold it forever. Under Section 10.52.040, a car left unclaimed for thirty days after notice is sold "at public auction to the highest bidder for cash," with the sale published in a local newspaper.

Moving it to a paid lot is taxed

Parking a dead car in a commercial lot does not take it off the village's radar. Section 3.54.010 taxes parking in any lot or garage in the village at "twelve dollars and fifty cents" for each month or part of one, per vehicle, and its definition of a motor vehicle includes "any inoperable vehicles." Residential tenant parking arranged through a lease is exempt.

Selling a Cook County car

Cook County plays no part in the title; Springfield does. Illinois has no separate seller form either. The handoff happens on the certificate, in its Assignment of Title area, at the moment you deliver the car. Federal and state law want printed names and signatures from everyone selling and buying, plus the odometer statement. The Secretary of State's steps for sellers leave out any notary.

Keep your plates. Illinois plates are the seller's to keep. A Melrose Park buyer can't legally drive on your plates. Once a Melrose Park car is sold, mail the Notice of Sale to Springfield, where the Secretary of State's Record Inquiry Division takes it. Filing it ends your part in the Melrose Park car. Ownership moves to the buyer when they get it retitled. The law gives them 20 days to do that, at a $165 title fee.

If the car will be scrapped, Illinois issues a junking certificate rather than titling it again, and anyone can take that certificate by assignment. Cook County is also on the state emissions list, which matters for a car still being renewed.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or use the form for your Melrose Park car. Side streets, driveways near downtown and shops that gave up on it all work for pickup. If you are just over the line, see Maywood, Elmwood Park or Oak Park, and Illinois for the statewide picture.