Selling a dead car under North Charleston's 72-hour rule

What Section 9-67 covers

The section lists conditions the city calls "unhealthy and unsightly" and treats as public nuisances. Two matter here:

• "Accumulations of scrap, paper, junk, vehicle parts" and other debris
• a vehicle that is dismantled, cannot propel itself, or fails safety rules, left that way past 72 hours

A properly zoned repair or towing business may hold such vehicles for repair or towing storage. But once one has been there "more than ninety (90) days," the business "must be able to document reasonable efforts" to repair or return it. A car left at a North Charleston garage for months, over a repair bill nobody plans to pay, puts the garage on that 90-day clock too. Stuck at a repair shop covers that situation.

The street: one day

Section 11-21 is one sentence: "No person shall park a vehicle on any street for a period longer than twenty-four (24) hours." Rolling a dead North Charleston car out to the curb buys no extra time. Signed spaces can carry tighter limits under Section 11-34, such as two-hour parking or loading zones.

Title office: Ladson

Ladson's branch at 135 Wimberly Drive, phone 843-572-7854, lies about 6 miles north of central North Charleston as the crow flies. It is the SCDMV office we checked. With the city covering parts of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties, you may find another branch more convenient.

Older cars without a title

Plenty of North Charleston cars stopped being worth the paperwork years ago. South Carolina has a route for them. North Charleston cars with no title can still be sold to a demolisher or secondary metals recycler if they are twelve-plus model years old, have no valid plate, and lack an engine or can't run. You must have it lawfully, and you sign a form affirming those facts that stays with the buyer. Owners with a faulty, lost or destroyed title qualify, as do people stuck with a car abandoned on their property. For anything newer, a duplicate title costs $15; see junk car with no title.

Taking apart or scrapping a titled car on your own, outside a sale to a demolisher or recycler, obliges you to give the title and plates to the SCDMV.

Selling it with a title

Your part of the assignment: the purchaser's name and home address, the lender if one is listed, the current mileage, the agreed price and the date, plus your signature beside the buyer's. North Charleston sellers whose title lacks a spot for the price can put it on a bill of sale. Tell the SCDMV about the sale with its Form 416 (Notice of Vehicle Sold); Ladson takes it in person, or post it. Keep the plate when the car leaves North Charleston. With no other car to move it to, return it to the state using Form 452. Then you can cancel the car's liability coverage. After you sell lists the last steps.

Nearby towns

From North Charleston, Hanahan is 3.8 straight-line miles and Goose Creek 6.2. Charleston is 8.2 miles and Summerville 9.0. See South Carolina for the statewide rules.

Getting an offer

Reach us at (877) 421-6008 or online. For a North Charleston car, the offer form asks for the few details we need. You sell the whole car as it sits, and pickup is free anywhere in the US. The truck can meet it in your yard, on a repair shop lot, or at a tow yard.