Goose Creek's 14-day rule and selling a dead car

The 14-day rule and the six-foot fence

Section 95.037 says no one except a licensed repair shop may keep such a vehicle on residential or commercial property "for more than 14 days" unless it is "in a completely enclosed building or fenced area." The fence has a spec: "minimum height of six feet," built so the vehicle "cannot be seen from adjacent properties." Chain link you can see through fails that test, while a solid six-foot privacy fence can pass it.

Two more limits apply in residential sections:

• No more than three wrecked, dismantled, inoperative or unlicensed vehicles, and those have to be inside a building or behind the fence.
• No keeping a dead car around as a parts source, unless it is inside the building or fence.

Who is responsible

The code puts the job on the owner or other parties of interest in the property. They must remove, store or fix the car "through private means" and indemnify the city for its costs. Once the city deems a vehicle wrecked, abandoned, dismantled, inoperative or unlicensed, it "must be removed, properly stored or brought into compliance" as the notice directs. Several junk cars helps if the three-car cap is the problem.

What "inoperative" means here

Goose Creek's definitions in Section 95.021 describe an inoperative vehicle as one "which cannot be driven upon the public streets as it was intended and designed to do for reason including but not limited to being unlicensed, wrecked, in a state of disrepair or incapable of being moved under its own power." That is why the plate matters as much as the engine.

Repair shops get 30 days for vehicles they are actively fixing. In commercial districts, Section 93.193 bars junk, car bodies and parts outside a building or a six-foot fence, with a similar 30-day allowance for licensed body shops.

Impound

Under Section 71.12, an unattended car breaking the traffic chapter "may be removed and impounded by any police officer or duly authorized person." It goes back to the identified owner "only upon payment of cost of impounding."

Title, plates and older cars

Goose Creek sits in Berkeley County, but the SCDMV runs titles statewide. Every South Carolina seller files Form 416, the "Notice of Vehicle Sold", and in Goose Creek you can mail it in instead of going to a branch.

In the assignment space, put down the buyer's full name and address, then the lienholder, mileage, price paid and sale date, and each of you signs. A bill of sale goes along when the title has no price line. Remove the plate. It either goes onto another car titled to you or back to the SCDMV with Form 452, and the car's liability insurance ends.

If the car is one of three behind the fence and nobody can find its title, there may be another path. In Goose Creek, a demolisher or secondary metals recycler can legally take a car with no title under South Carolina law. Twelve model years is the floor, so the car must be older than that. It also needs no valid plate, and it must be engineless or not running. The owner signs an affirming form. That covers your own car with a lost, destroyed or faulty title, and a car someone left on your land. Otherwise a duplicate title is $15. See car abandoned on your property or junk car with no title.

Nearby towns

Hanahan is 4.4 straight-line miles from Goose Creek, North Charleston 6.2 and Summerville 9.9. Charleston is 11.7. The South Carolina page has the statewide rules.

Getting an offer

Dead car in Goose Creek? Phone (877) 421-6008 or reach us online. You sell the whole car as it sits, with free pickup anywhere in the US. In Goose Creek, our truck picks it up from your garage, driveway, or behind a fence.