Junk and dead cars in Wilmington, Massachusetts

Reading the storage bylaw

This rule lives in the town's Vehicles and Traffic bylaw, under storage restrictions for unregistered and inoperative vehicles. It reaches "any land in the Town", private driveways included. Two conditions work as a pair: no current registration, and a car that is broken down, taken apart or otherwise out of service. A registered car with a dead starter falls outside those words; the day its registration lapses, it falls inside.

Only a handful of legal homes remain for such a car: a building, a corner the neighbors and passers-by cannot see, or certain licensed premises the bylaw names. No grace period appears in the text we read.

December to April: no parking overnight

Between December 1 and April 1, the bylaw bars leaving any vehicle "parked or unattended upon a public way" from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. It's easy to let a car that can't drive sit at the curb. Come winter, people start to notice it. A separate sentence forbids parking anything so that it blocks plowing or ice removal.

The Director of Public Works or the Police Chief may send such a car "to some convenient place, including in such term a public garage", with the owner owing the cost of the move and any storage. State law, c. 159B s. 6B, says a passenger car Wilmington police had towed costs no more than $35 per day to store in a fenced, lit and secure lot, or half that in other lots.

The seller's half of the title

At delivery, Massachusetts law expects the owner to sign an assignment on the certificate that records the real odometer reading and warrants the title, and to give or mail that certificate to the buyer. The RMV's private-sale page adds hand-printed names and a date from each party on the transfer block. A notary is nowhere in those instructions.

Nothing gets filed afterward to release you. The state has no such form; instead, c. 90D s. 15(e) protects a Wilmington seller who signed the assignment and handed off the car from later driving or violations, even with the buyer's new title still to come.

Plates and the excise bill

You take the plates home; they don't go with the car. Cancel the Wilmington registration online and hold on to the receipt. After that, cut the plates through or send them off to be recycled. Cancelling also saves you money. As long as the plates stay registered, Wilmington's excise bill runs $25 for every $1,000 of value. A lapse does not stop those bills.

Getting an offer

Selling a car in Wilmington? Call (877) 421-6008 or send the offer form. A tow truck can pick it up from a Wilmington garage, a back corner of the lot or a repair shop. Straight-line distance to Reading is 3.6 miles, and to Tewksbury 4.6. The Massachusetts page has the statewide rules.