Selling a junk or dead car in Forney

A month on the lot: the test for a Forney car

Forney's test has two halves, and a car has to meet both. First, the plate or the inspection certificate is expired or missing. Second, the Forney car must be wrecked, stripped, partly dismantled or thrown away, or sit dead on private land for 30 straight days. On a public street the clock is far shorter: 72 hours. The code's word "inoperative" covers any car that can't legally be driven on city streets, not only one that won't start.

City Hall's compliance page sorts junk cars under "Legal With Restrictions." Its short version: a month on the lot, seen from the road, and either not running or not currently registered or inspected.

The safe harbor is a garage with the door shut, where nobody can see in. Dealers, junkyards and collectors who keep cars orderly and screened are also exempt.

Ten days from the letter

Before anything happens to a car on private property, Forney mails a certified letter, return receipt requested within five days. The letter is addressed to the registered owner on file, each recorded lienholder, and whoever owns or occupies the property. If no one knows where the owner lives, the letter can be taped to the car.

Count ten days from the mailing date. By then the car has to be gone. Want a hearing instead? Ask inside those ten days. The municipal court won't sit before day eleven, and at that hearing the burden is on you: the court assumes the car doesn't run until you prove it does.

Here is the part most owners miss. Once a judge orders a car removed, the car is barred from repair for good. It is headed for scrap. Selling it yourself before that order keeps the choice in your hands.

When police tow it

A certified letter goes out within ten days of police taking an abandoned car. From that letter, you have 20 days to pay the towing, preservation and storage bill and claim it. After day 20 the car can be auctioned. Anything left from the sale waits 90 days for the owner. Forney police take non-emergency calls at 972-552-6625, and our towed or impounded guide walks through the next steps.

Stray parts are covered as well. Forney lists old car parts that aren't in use, along with waste tires, as junk, and a loose tire can't go out in a city trash container.

Kaufman County and the Texas paperwork

Texas handles titles at county tax offices. Forney sellers use the Kaufman County office, 100 N. Washington St. in the city of Kaufman, roughly 14 miles away as the crow flies, southeast of Forney. Call (469) 376-4596.

Your part as seller: fill in the odometer reading and the sale date when you sign the title, then sign Form 130-U, the buyer's title application, after writing in the price. Texas skips the notary. After the sale, report it to TxDMV within 30 days, online or with Form VTR-346, which stops anyone pinning the new owner's tolls or tickets on you. Lost the title? Order a certified copy on Form VTR-34 first; it costs $5.45 at the counter. More in selling with no title.

Plates come off with you if you like. Moving them to another car of the same class is free at the county office, or you can hang on to them. Plates you discard must be defaced first. The registration sticker does not move with kept plates.

Kaufman is still on the list of 17 Texas counties with emissions testing, though statewide safety inspections stopped Jan. 1, 2025.

Ready for an offer?

The quickest route is the offer form above, or call (877) 421-6008. We ask for the year, make, model and odometer reading, know whether it starts, and say where the title is. We can pick up from a driveway in Forney, a lot in Mesquite or Terrell, or a shop that couldn't repair the car. The Texas page has the statewide rules.