Selling a junk or dead car in Poughkeepsie

How the city takes over an abandoned car

Chapter 13, Article IV runs the process. Section 13-57 tells the city who to ask about the owner. If the car has plates, it asks whichever state issued them, whatever the car is worth. If it has no plates and is worth more than $750, it asks the DMV.

Next comes a certified letter to the last registered owner, return receipt requested. It warns that if nobody claims the car, it "will be sold at public auction after 10 days from the date such notice was mailed." Title passes to the city at the same 10-day mark.

To claim the car back, the code charges an administrative fee of $50, plus $65 for removal and $10 a day for storage. If the city sells it, the Commissioner of Finance holds whatever is left after removal and storage costs for one year from the sale, without interest.

Article IV also bars leaving any vehicle on a public highway, city property or a public parking area "beyond the period such vehicle may lawfully be left parked thereon."

Street permits still have a 48-hour limit

A Poughkeepsie parking permit frees you from posted time limits but not from all of them. Permit holders still follow "forty-eight-hour parking limits", alternate side parking, and the limits set for street cleaning, garbage pickup and snow removal. A car left out during a snow proclamation under Section 13-2 is "deemed to constitute an obstruction of traffic" and falls under the abandoned-vehicle article.

The third dead car makes a junkyard

The zoning code, Section 19-2.2, draws the line. Storing "more than two dismantled or unregistered and inoperative motor vehicles" where a public highway can see them "for more than one day" counts as running a junkyard on that property. A legal garage or repair shop gets 30 days instead of one. So two dead cars in the driveway pass this test, and a third one does not.

If a private lot had it towed

The city's private-towing rules require the tow operator to call the Poughkeepsie Police Department within 30 minutes of the car reaching storage. The call has to name the storage yard, the time of the tow, where the car came from and who asked for it. Signs at the lot must list the tow company, the impound address, the hours for getting a car back, and the fees. If your car disappeared from a private lot, the police should already know where it went.

Selling it under New York rules

As the seller, you sign just twice. You sign the title's back in the assignment block, then the MV-912 sales receipt, which the buyer takes to the DMV. Nobody has to notarize either. Lost the title? A replacement through Form MV-902 runs $20.00, and Albany posts it out. The MV-35 shortcut for owners without a title is narrow, so read selling with no title before counting on it. Anything from model year 1972 or earlier never had a New York title, only a transferable registration.

Before the Poughkeepsie car leaves, pull its plates and peel off the windshield registration sticker. In Poughkeepsie, the plates go straight back to the DMV or onto the seller's next car. Turn them in before you cancel any insurance. Save the FS-6T receipt you get for the plates. Because the state uses no notice-of-sale filing, that receipt plus your copy of the MV-912 answers any lapse letter. After you sell has the rest.

Nearby towns

Newburgh is 14.2 miles away as the crow flies, Kingston 16.7 miles and Middletown 31.2 miles. For rules that apply statewide, see New York.

Getting an offer

Ask for an offer online or call (877) 421-6008. It helps to know the make and year, a mileage guess, if it cranks, and who the title belongs to. In Poughkeepsie we pick up near the river, up the hill, or at a repair shop that quit on the job.