Selling a junk or dead car in Xenia

What Xenia counts as inoperable

The property maintenance definition covers a vehicle that "cannot be driven upon the public streets for reason including but not limited to being unlicensed, wrecked, abandoned, in a state of disrepair, or incapable of being moved under its own power." Section 1490.03 then keeps every such car, and every unlicensed one, off all premises. No car may be left in heavy disrepair or half dismantled either, and paint jobs belong in an approved spray booth and nowhere else.

The exception, word for word: "An inoperable or unlicensed vehicle or a vehicle undergoing major overhaul, including body work, is permitted within a building so as not to be visible from the street or neighboring properties if the vehicle is titled to the owner or resident of the premises."

Ignore a notice of violation and the code official calls in the Chief of Police to have the car removed.

Allowed repairs have a curfew: no major overhaul or body work from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and nothing anyone 50 feet away can hear or feel.

The junk-car order, with fines written in

Section 454.06 covers an older wreck: three years old or more, badly damaged (wheels, tires, motor or transmission gone, for instance), seemingly unable to run, with a fair market value no higher than $1,500, and sitting out in the open, uncovered, for over three days on land whose holder allows it.

• Who sends the order: the Chief of Police, City Council or the Planning and Zoning Department, by certified mail, return receipt requested.
• The deadline: ten days from receipt for the car to be "covered by being housed in a garage or other suitable structure," or taken off the property.
• First offense: a minor misdemeanor carrying a mandatory fine, $50 at minimum.
• Another within two years: it becomes a first-degree misdemeanor, and the mandatory fine starts at $500.
• Each further day: another offense.

If a stranger dumps a junk car on your land for over 48 hours without permission, Section 454.07 charges whoever left it with a minor misdemeanor, plus Xenia's disposal costs.

Streets, snow and impound

Section 454.03 lets police tow a car abandoned two days or longer on a public road or its right-of-way when nobody has told the Chief of Police the reason. A certified letter then goes to the owner, and once ten days have gone by since mailing without a claim, the city can treat it as a nuisance and dispose of it. Proof of ownership may be a title, registration or lease, and Xenia may tack a $25 processing fee onto the towing and storage bill.

Streets marked with permanent snow-emergency signs are closed to parking whenever a snow emergency has been properly declared, and an officer can send a car parked there to storage on the spot. Police can also impound a car wrecked past the point of running. To reclaim any stored car, satisfy the Police Division or the storage operator about who you are and your right to the car, then pay what the towing and storage cost.

Title office on Ledbetter Road

Greene County's Clerk of Courts runs its title counter right in Xenia, at Suite B, 601 Ledbetter Rd., phone (937) 562-6055. From the spot the Census Bureau uses as the middle of Xenia, that is about 1.1 miles south as the crow flies. The next closest are both Montgomery County's: Centerville, about 12.7 miles west, then downtown Dayton, about 14.7 miles.

The seller fills in the assignment block printed on the title's back and then signs it in front of a notary. If the title has gone missing, the same counter issues a replacement: form BMV 3774, marked duplicate, with a notarized signature. The state fee is $18, rising to $23 in counties whose commissioners voted for the increase. Pull the plates before the car leaves, because Ohio ends the registration at the sale. See after you sell.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or get going online. Give us the car's year and model, its odometer reading and whether it runs. Say whose name is printed on the title, because in Xenia that decides the garage exception as well as the sale. Nearby, see Beavercreek and Fairborn.