Selling a junk or dead car in Lubbock

When a Lubbock car becomes "junked"

Lubbock declares junked vehicles a nuisance under Texas Transportation Code chapter 683, subchapter E, and writes its own procedures to match. Its article reaches a self-propelled vehicle wearing a lapsed tag, or none, once that vehicle is wrecked, dismantled, discarded, or has sat dead longer than these Lubbock limits:

• 72 consecutive hours on a street or other public property
• 30 consecutive days on private land, your own driveway and yard included

Aircraft and boats fall under it too. The city lists its reasons: these vehicles are dangerous, drag down property values, invite vandalism, are fire hazards and lure in kids.

Lubbock Code Enforcement's own page puts the private-property test in plain words. Inspectors look for vehicles with expired tags or inspection that have not moved in 30 days.

What keeps a car outside the rule

Lubbock exempts a vehicle shut fully inside a lawful building, which nobody on the street or the next lot over can see. Dealers, junkyards and collectors get a pass only when their cars are kept orderly behind a fence, trees or shrubbery.

Two ways Lubbock can come after it

The complaint. Keeping a junked-vehicle nuisance in Lubbock is a misdemeanor, and the fine can reach $200. The city may file the moment it spots the problem. After a conviction the court orders the nuisance abated. If that never happens, the city can clear it and send the reasonable bill to whoever was found guilty.

The letter. Lubbock's director of code enforcement mails it certified, five-day return requested, or by USPS with signature confirmation. Lubbock addresses copies to the car's registered owner, every lienholder on it, and the owner or tenant of the address. From there:

1. Ten days is your window. A hearing has to be requested inside it.
2. Lubbock's permit and license appeal board hears the case, on the eleventh day after notice at the earliest. Lubbock's board presumes the car is inoperable; proving otherwise is on you.
3. The city asks that board for a removal order, plus permission to tow it if you have not acted within five days of that order.
4. Skip the hearing, or leave the car in place, and you give up your rights in it. So does your lender.

Whoever the car was last registered to is presumed to own it for prosecution. Evidence can rebut that, which matters if you sold it and never filed the transfer notice.

Rolling the car to another Lubbock address does not close a case already under way, provided it still counts as a nuisance at the second Lubbock address.

If the city does the towing

Once Lubbock hauls a car off under this article, the law forbids putting it back together. Lubbock reports it to TxDOT inside five days, then sends it on for scrap or salvage at a scrapyard, a demolisher's yard or a Lubbock-run site.

One shortcut counts as compliance. Inside ten days of getting the notice, you can hand Lubbock's code director written permission to take the car. That counts as compliance with the article.

Nothing in the article stops Lubbock from removing a vehicle on public property at once if it blocks traffic. This page covers the junked-vehicle article only; the city's traffic and parking chapters may add their own street limits.

Who to call in Lubbock

• Code Administration (code enforcement), 1314 Avenue K, 806-775-2193, weekdays 8 am to 5 pm. The city says neighborhood violations usually get between 1 and 10 days to be fixed.
• Police non-emergency, 806-775-2865. The headquarters front desk is 806-775-2816.

Lubbock County's tax office and the paperwork

Titles in Texas are county business. In Lubbock, the buyer applies at the Lubbock County tax assessor-collector, 916 Main St, Ste 102, phone (806) 775-1344. It sits about 3 miles northeast of central Lubbock, as the crow flies.

Your part as the Lubbock seller:

• Fill in the sale date and mileage where you assign the title. Texas skips the notary for this.
• Your buyer also needs the Lubbock-signed Form 130-U, which TxDMV wants to show the sales price.
• Within a month (30 days, to be exact), report the Lubbock sale to TxDMV online at its VTN page or by mailing Form VTR-346. Filed on time, it protects a Lubbock seller from your buyer's parking tickets and tolls, though the buyer still has to retitle.
• Keep your own Lubbock sale record: buyer, phone or email, date and VIN.

The plates and registration sticker can come off with you. Lubbock plates you keep can go on a later vehicle of matching class, stay in a garage drawer, or be scratched out before disposal. A kept plate leaves its sticker behind.

Title gone missing? TxDMV's Form VTR-34 gets a certified replacement; in person it is $5.45. All recorded owners sign it, and copies are spaced at least 30 days apart. There is also a narrow no-title route through a used parts recycler for a Lubbock car at least 13 years old with no registration in the last seven years; see selling with no title.

Emissions testing is not required in Lubbock County, which is not among the 17 counties TxDMV lists, and Texas ended mandatory safety inspections for personal cars as of January 1, 2025.

Getting an offer from Lubbock

Reach us online or at (877) 421-6008 with the car's details: year, make, model, odometer, whether it cranks, and the Lubbock title's condition. A truck then comes for the Lubbock car, be it parked behind a house on a side street or stuck at a shop near downtown. The closest towns we cover are Big Spring, 94.4 miles out, and Midland; statewide rules are on the Texas page.