Selling a junk or dead car in Mansfield

A car nobody is fixing gets no such cover. We buy whole non-running and junk cars, and you sell the whole car as it sits, with free pickup anywhere in the US.

When Mansfield calls a car inoperable

Section 521.15 has two routes to the label. A car with no valid plate is inoperable if it is wrecked or taken apart, even partly, or discarded, or cannot be driven. A car with good plates gets there too, if it stays in any of those conditions for fourteen days in a row.

The project-car exception has limits beyond the tarp. The code's words: "No resident shall repair or restore more than one vehicle outside an enclosed structure at any given time." A car under repair in a residential area also may not sit on a vacant lot, unless that lot is next door to where the person doing the work lives.

Ten working days after notice

The notice is served the way a civil summons is under the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, with a copy left at the property when that is practical. If no one can be found, it may be published once in a daily newspaper. It says the car is considered inoperable and "will be removed ten days thereafter, impounded, and subsequently disposed of." It puts the costs on whoever controls the land or the registered owner, and it names the city official, address and phone number to contact.

Those ten days do not count Saturdays, Sundays or municipal holidays, so they are working days.

During that window, a written request gets you a hearing before the Law Director or a designee. Only two issues are on the table there: whether the land is yours to answer for, and whether the car is truly inoperable. If whoever holds the land reports within ten days that the car was dumped there without permission, the city handles it under the state's abandoned-vehicle law instead.

If nothing changes, the Police Department may remove and dispose of the car under Chapter 307, the city's impoundment rules. A first offense is a fourth-degree misdemeanor and later ones are second-degree. Each day counts as a separate offense, provided a separate notice was issued for it.

The code points people to the Bureau of Buildings, Inspections, Licenses and Permits. The city website lists its Building Codes and Permits office at 30 North Diamond Street, 3rd floor, 419.755.9688, open 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, and offers an online form to report a code violation.

Streets and towing

• Street parking. Section 351.15: "No person shall stand or park a vehicle upon any of the streets or alleys for a period of time longer than twenty-four consecutive hours."
• Abandoned vehicles. Nobody may "willfully leave any vehicle" on private property "for more than seventy-two hours without the permission of the person having the right to the possession of the property," according to Section 303.09, or park one at a curb 48 hours or longer without notice to the police chief.
• Towing. Section 307.01 lets police tow a car parked on someone's private property past 48 consecutive hours without permission, one at a curb for 48 hours or longer, or one left on a street after damage made it unable to run.

Thirty days unclaimed is the limit for an impounded car. After that, Section 307.06 says it "shall be sold under the direction of the Chief of Police at public auction," or it goes to a salvage dealer or scrap processor. The owner is sent a certified letter at least 15 days before that happens. To claim the car, the owner pays all towing, storage and impound fees, plus whatever the city spent keeping it. Non-emergency dispatch: 419-522-1234.

Title office in Richland County

Richland County's title office is at 77 N. Mulberry St., which puts it, as the crow flies, about 0.8 miles southeast of the city's center point. You can reach it at (419) 774-5510. The next nearest are in other counties, more than 30 miles away: Wayne County's in Wooster, about 30.5 miles east, and Marion County's in Marion, about 33.8 miles west.

For the sale itself:

• Write the buyer into the ownership section on the title's reverse side, then sign in front of a notary.
• If the title is electronic, the assignment goes on form BMV 3770 instead.
• Ohio registration does not survive a sale, so unscrew the plates; they are yours, not the buyer's.
• The buyer pays the sales or use tax at the title office; the clerk refuses the application without it.

Getting an offer

Start online or call (877) 421-6008. Describe the car (age, odometer, running or not) and tell us where it is: under a tarp in the driveway, in the back yard, or out on the street. The truck comes to it.