Selling a dead or junk car in Sterling Heights

The seven-day notice on your front door

The city's amendments to the property maintenance code set the removal clock. For a car in the front, side or rear yard of a single- or two-family home, Section 302.8.6 gives seven (7) days after code enforcement or police post a notice on the front door. On a vacant property or unimproved land, the seven days start when the car itself is tagged.

If the car is still there, the next subsection lets the city or its contractor come onto the property and haul it to storage the city picks. When the car sits behind a fence or a locked gate, the city can get an administrative warrant.

Getting it back costs more than money. Under the subsection after that, the owner pays every removal cost, impound and storage included, and must make sure the car is "properly registered and insured." For a car whose tabs ran out months ago, that is the hard part. Michigan does not bill back years on expired plates, but it adds a $10 late fee and does not prorate the renewal.

An earlier subsection of the same amendments also bars parking or storing a car, "regardless of whether it is operable or licensed," anywhere it is "visible from any public right-of-way," unless another law or city rule allows it.

Parts piles count too

The blight section treats "parts of machinery or motor vehicles" kept in the open as junk, "whether or not the same could be put to any reasonable use." A stack of old wheels or a pulled transmission beside the garage is covered.

Storing or taking apart wrecked cars has its own rule. Chapter 26 defines a junk yard as any place where wrecked cars or cars "unfit for highway use" are stored or dismantled, and a used car lot doing that counts as one. A junk yard needs a license approved by City Council.

Michigan title and plate rules

Car titles are not handled by Macomb County. People in Sterling Heights get them at a Secretary of State branch, which the Michigan Department of State operates. Write the odometer reading on the original certificate, fill out the seller lines, and sign. Every owner listed signs as well. The state's description of what a seller does never mentions a notary.

You stay the owner of record until the buyer files. A Sterling Heights seller is protected by MCL 257.240 after a branch visit together with the buyer, or by holding sale records for 18 months or more. In Sterling Heights, a photocopy of the signed-over title counts. Without that paperwork the fine is $15, and the law presumes the tow and storage bills from any later abandonment are yours. When the city can haul a car off a private yard seven days after a door notice, that photocopy costs almost nothing.

Unscrew the plate as the car leaves; Michigan lets you reuse it on another vehicle. If you forget, parking tickets the buyer collects can be pinned on you. A replacement title is $15 by mail, with roughly 14 days of waiting, or $20 if you pick it up from a branch the same day.

Getting an offer

Selling a car in Sterling Heights? Call (877) 421-6008 or send the form. Sterling Heights pickups work from closed garages, back yards or driveways. Troy is 5.9 miles away and Warren 6.1; each has its own page. See Michigan for statewide rules.