Selling a dead car in New Albany

When the city calls a car abandoned

Section 90.05 lists the cases. The ones a dead car usually falls into:

• "A vehicle left on public property without being removed for 24 hours."
• "A vehicle from which the engine, transmission or differential has been removed or that is otherwise partially dismantled or inoperable and left on public property."
• A towed car "not claimed or redeemed by the owner or the owner's agent within 20 days of the vehicle's removal."
• A car "at least three model years old, mechanically inoperable and is left on private property continuously in a location visible from public property for more than 20 days."

Someone else's land has a shorter fuse. Under Section 90.21, when a property owner complains that a car has been left there "for at least 48 hours" without consent, an officer starts the removal process.

The Building Commissioner's ten days

A separate rule, Section 150.101, requires landowners to keep their premises free of "junk and abandoned vehicles" when they can be seen from a street, alley, public place or the property next door. The code calls them "injurious to the public welfare" and a nuisance.

The notice can come in person, by certified mail, or as a placard posted on the property. It gives "ten days" to remove the vehicles. If they are still there, the city or its agent hauls them away, and the Building Commissioner files a lien against the property with the County Recorder. An appeal must be in writing and "received within ten days" of the notice or of the statement of costs.

After a tow

Section 90.22 makes the public agency or towing service search the national title database within three business days of the tow. Then, within three business days of finding the owner, it must send notice that "storage charges are being accrued and the vehicle is subject to sale." A tower that skips that notice "may not collect additional storage costs" incurred after it had the address.

For a junk car worth under $1,000, which is a legal test, not a price, Section 90.16 has the tower move it straight to a storage yard. The car can be disposed of "not less than 30 days after" it was towed.

State law charges the abandoned car's owner for towing, the yard and disposal. Yard charges stop at $2,000, and the former owner is excused from them entirely when the yard sells the car. See impounded car.

Mount Tabor Road branch

For Floyd County we checked the BMV branch at 821 Mount Tabor Rd., Suite 100, about 1 mile north of the middle of New Albany as the crow flies (888-692-6841). Titles come from the state BMV.

Selling takes a pen, not a branch visit. Each person on the title signs and prints in the seller's box and writes the miles, the date, the amount and the buyer. The BMV's seller steps list no notary. The buyer has 45 days to apply for a new title.

With no title, a car headed to scrap can still go under a Certificate of Authority, State Form 55018, for $4.00. A duplicate title is $15.00. Read junk car with no title.

Plates

Unscrew them before the car leaves. Indiana has no plate-return rule. Save them for another vehicle you own.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or tell us online about the car, its mileage, whether it runs and whether you can sign the title over. Pickup can be on a side street near the riverfront, in a driveway uphill, or at a shop. Nearby pages: Clarksville, Jeffersonville and Seymour. The Indiana page has the statewide rules.