Selling a junk or dead car in Asheville

Two kinds of junked car in Asheville

Section 10-30 handles the plain kind. After looking into it, the director may "determine and declare that a motor vehicle is junked." From then on the registered owner may not "leave or allow the vehicle to remain on the property." A second finding, that the car is "a health or safety hazard," lets the director order it hauled away.

Section 10-31 handles the aesthetic kind. Appearance drives that order, and the director writes the finding down. Once ordered, the car becomes a problem for two people at once: whoever owns it, and whoever owns, rents or lives on the Asheville lot under it.

Seven days from the windshield notice

Section 10-32 lets the city tow only after warning the owner. Asheville puts the warning "on the windshield or some other conspicuous place on the vehicle," with a tow date "no sooner than seven days after the notice is affixed." Get the car moved first and the tow is off.

An aesthetic junked car's notice carries an added line about a hearing before towing, which Section 10-36 lays out. For a seller, that week is the time to line up a buyer.

A stranger's car on your Asheville lot

If someone abandoned a dead car on your property, the city tows it from private land only when you ask. Section 10-35 wants a written request certifying it has stayed "without consent in excess of seven days." The requester also pays any pre-towing fees and agrees to "indemnify the city" over the removal.

Asheville streets and impound

Section 19-59 keeps oversize vehicles off city system streets. A big rig "temporarily rendered inoperable by mechanical difficulty" gets a pass during repairs, "in no event to exceed three hours."

Police tow under Section 19-148 when a car is "abandoned, junked or wrecked on the public streets of the city or on city property," and they attach a storage card. To redeem it, the owner brings "proof of ownership to the police department" and pays the impound expenses. Section 10-43 forbids pulling a car out of city storage until towing and impound fees, or a bond, are settled. Towed or impounded explains the rest.

Buncombe County's two inspections

Buncombe sits on the state's emissions-testing list, so Asheville cars face that test plus the annual safety check. The safety pass must come within 90 days before a renewal. Let the tag lapse while the car waits and the late fee climbs: $15 inside the first month, $20 in the second, $25 from then on. Failed inspection or rust covers a car that cannot pass.

Asheville title paperwork

In North Carolina the state issues titles; Buncombe County does not. Our check found a plate agency at 153 Smokey Park Highway, Suite 160-A, roughly 4 miles west of downtown Asheville as the crow flies. Others may exist in the county.

A notary has to watch the Asheville seller sign the title's reverse side. On an Asheville title, that area takes both parties' names and addresses, the date sold, mileage if required, and the damage statement. Co-owned cars need every signature notarized. Missing title? File Form MVR-4 first; it is notarized too, and NCDMV holds it 15 days after receipt.

North Carolina plates belong to the seller. In Asheville, return any plates you won't use again to NCDMV, in person at a plate agency or by mail, before canceling the insurance. Turning one in may bring back a prorated slice of the yearly plate fee.

Towns near Asheville

Asheville stands apart in the mountains among our pages. Shelby is about 60 miles off and Hickory about 70. The North Carolina page holds the statewide rules.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or use the form. Have a car to sell in Asheville? Asheville sellers can start with our offer form. You sell the whole car as it sits. Our truck can meet it in your driveway, a downtown lot, or at the garage that diagnosed it.