Junk car rules and selling in Blue Springs

Abandoning a car under the city code

Section 220.655 makes it an offense to "knowingly abandon" a vehicle, vessel or trailer. Two outs are written in. A registered owner escapes the penalties if the car "was in the care, custody, or control of another person" at the time. If the car is said to have been stolen, the owner "shall submit proof that a police report was filed in a timely manner."

So when a Blue Springs car changes hands, put it on record. Revenue expects word of the sale inside 30 days, by filing a Bill of Sale (DOR-1957) or a Notice of Sale (DOR-5049). Recent Missouri titles print a DOR-5049A strip you can tear off for exactly this. Bill of sale shows what to fill in.

Plates, trailers and the 48-hour notice

Section 380.050 bars driving or parking on city streets without "a valid license plate or plates or temporary permit" from the Missouri Department of Revenue. It also reaches the trailer you might use to drag a dead car home. Parking a trailer on a city street is unlawful when it is one "on which or in which is located an inoperable motor vehicle or an unlicensed motor vehicle" that could be licensed if it ran. The city sticks the notice on the trailer itself, and that counts as notice. The fix is due "within the forty-eight (48) hours," or charges follow.

If a tow truck shows up

Chapter 630, Article III sets the city's towing rules:

• An owner who "is present and capable of removing the vehicle" before the tow keeps the car where it is. The owner can owe a fee "not to exceed one-half (1/2) of the regular towing fee."
• Cars towed from inside the city go to a storage lot open for pickup "twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week."
• Nobody may solicit, on city streets, the towing of a wrecked or disabled car, and offers to buy it count as soliciting.
• Private lots that tow must post a sign at least 17 by 22 inches at each entrance.

If your car is already in a storage lot, towed or impounded covers what comes next.

Signing over a Missouri title

Blue Springs sellers sign without a notary; Missouri does not ask for one. In your own handwriting, add the mileage and the day of sale, keeping the title free of white-out and scratch-outs. Hand the buyer a safety certificate no older than 60 days too, unless the car is young enough to skip it: inside ten model years and below 150,000 miles. Jackson County sits outside Missouri's emissions-at-sale area. Plates, valid or lapsed, come off before the buyer leaves with the car.

A license office in any Missouri county, or the Motor Vehicle Bureau up in Jefferson City, accepts the paperwork. Replacing a lost title runs $8.50 for the duplicate and $9 to process it.

Getting an offer

Blue Springs sellers can phone (877) 421-6008 or tell us about the car on our form. Blue Springs pickups happen right where the car rests: a driveway, a concrete pad beside the house, a shop yard. Independence and Lee's Summit each have a page, and Missouri holds the statewide rules.