Selling a dead or junk car in Upper Arlington

The eight tests in UDO 6.09(D)(5)

A car is inoperable when any one of these is true:

1. one or more wheels are missing
2. one or more tires are missing
3. one or more tires are flat
4. one or more windows are cracked, broken or missing
5. the windshield is shattered or missing
6. parts it needs to run are missing
7. it can't be started and driven from where it is
8. it displays an invalid license plate

The same section limits any vehicle to four hours on a lawn or other surface that isn't impervious. The city's Good Neighbor Guidelines say it more bluntly: inoperable vehicles must be parked or stored inside a completely enclosed structure, and passenger cars don't park on grass.

Junk motor vehicles: seven days, then a letter

Chapter 537 adds a second label, the junk motor vehicle. It takes four things together:

• it sat past 72 hours on private land with no enclosed garage around it, or past 48 on a street
• it is three or more years old
• it is extensively damaged, say a broken window or windshield, or missing wheels, tires, motor or transmission
• it looks inoperable

Section 537.10 allows no more than seven days for one on private property.

Then the city manager acts. Written notice goes by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the titled owner, or to whoever possesses the property if the owner is unknown. With no known address to mail it to, the city may print the notice once in a newspaper instead. You have 10 days after service to remove the car. Within seven days of service you may ask in writing for a hearing before the board of zoning and planning, which meets on it within 30 days and decides whether the car is junk.

Garaged cars fall outside the definition, and Upper Arlington also exempts a wreck that a body shop or service garage is holding for repairs.

Public places get a shorter limit: 48 hours. A junk car left that long on an Upper Arlington street, a road right-of-way or other ground open to the public means a minor misdemeanor charge. On top of it come the city's disposal costs, less anything the car brought in.

Towing and the pound

On a complaint, police may order into storage a car left on private residential property for at least four hours without the possessor's permission. An officer may also move to the nearest garage a car that obstructs traffic on a street, or one parked without permission in an undesignated space. If nobody has claimed an impounded car a full day after it was taken, the pound officer writes to the owner stating the violation and the redelivery charges, and the claimant must show proof of right and title.

Title and plates

Ohio's county Clerk of Courts issues titles, and Upper Arlington sellers aren't limited to Franklin County's. Franklin County's nearest is in the Hollywood Shopping Center, 4153 W. Broad St., about 5.6 miles south of Upper Arlington's center point as the crow flies. Its Campus View office, 220 East Campus View Blvd., is about 7.1 miles northeast; both answer at (614) 525-3090. Union County's office on St. Rt. 161 in Dublin is about 8.3 miles northwest.

Before the car goes, have a notary watch you sign the title's assignment; Ohio won't accept it otherwise. The sale also ends the registration. Unbolt your plates and keep them.

Getting an offer

Online or at (877) 421-6008, let us know the model year, make and model, the odometer reading, if it starts, and who holds the title. You sell the whole car as it sits. Nearby: Hilliard and Columbus; see Ohio for state rules.