Selling a junk or dead car in Royse City

Royse City's junked-vehicle test

Sec. 8.08.031 starts from a self-propelled car whose plate has run out, or whose inspection certificate is missing or no longer valid. Pair that with a wreck, a teardown or a car just left to rot, and it qualifies. A Royse City car that simply quit qualifies too, after three straight days dead on public property (the code says 72 hours) or a month of them, 30 days, on private ground.

Sec. 8.08.032 then labels that car, or any piece of it, a public nuisance as soon as someone on a public street, sidewalk or right-of-way could spot it. The lone exemption that fits most homeowners: a car or part shut completely inside a building, invisible from the street and from neighboring lots.

How a case moves

• Written notice, ten days. The police chief or a designee notifies the registered owner, every lienholder, and the property's owner or occupant. Delivery is in person, by certified mail, or with signature confirmation. Day ten is the deadline to have it off the property.
• If you ask for a hearing. It happens no earlier than day eleven, with the chief or an agent presiding. The presumption runs against the owner: unless you prove it runs, it is treated as dead.
• If you stay silent. The code is direct: if no hearing is requested by day ten and the car remains, "the chief of police or his duly authorized agent shall request an abatement hearing." The municipal court may then issue orders to enforce removal.
• The fine. A misdemeanor with a $200 cap, charged again for each day the car stays.

City staff may come onto the lot. The code says an authorized person "may enter private property to examine a public nuisance," identify it, and remove it. Rolling the car down the block does not reset anything: shifting a junked car to another Royse City address once a case is open "has no effect on the proceeding" when the new spot is just as visible.

And the end of the line is fixed. "The city will dispose of a junked vehicle or junk vehicle part by removal to a licensed scrap yard, or a motor vehicle demolisher." After removal it "may not be reconstructed or made operable," and within five days Royse City reports the removal to the state.

Streets, abandoned cars and grass

Royse City's abandoned-vehicle division covers public property. A car that does not run and is more than five years old turns abandoned after 48 hours unattended there. Any car that sits on public property illegally past 48 hours does too. After Royse City takes one in, the owner and any lienholder get 20 days from the notice to settle towing, preservation and storage costs and take it back. Past that the car is auctioned publicly, and violating that division also carries a $200 cap per day.

Then there is the yard. Zoning Sec. 6-7 says vehicles parked or stored on residential private property must rest completely on concrete paving or pavers, from the street on. Properties of two acres or more can ask the council for a different surface.

Code Compliance takes calls at 972-636-2250 x1800 and email at codecompliance@roysecity.com. Its online complaint form has separate choices for a junk or abandoned vehicle and for parking in grass. Police non-emergency dispatch is 972-204-7001.

Three counties, three tax offices

Royse City reaches into Collin, Hunt and Rockwall counties, so a buyer has a choice of three offices. Distances are straight-line, as the crow flies, from the center of Royse City:

Whichever one gets picked, the new title application is the buyer's to file. Your jobs as seller are three. Sign the title over, writing in the mileage and the day you sold. Put your signature on Form 130-U, price filled in. Then, before 30 days pass, tell TxDMV about the transfer, using its website or paper Form VTR-346.

Two title details matter for dead cars. Texas brands a car salvage when fixing it would cost more than it was worth just before the damage. Go further, to a car good for nothing but parts or scrap, and the state issues a nonrepairable title instead; that car can never return to the road. Our salvage title guide covers both. A missing title is a smaller problem: the request form is VTR-34, for a certified copy, and it needs the signature of each owner on record. TxDMV charges $5.45 in person (a $2 fee applies to mail-in, by check or money order).

Getting an offer

Get an offer online or call (877) 421-6008. Expect questions about the car itself, its odometer, whether it cranks, and the title. The tow can meet the car on a residential street, near the Main Street storefronts, or out on a few acres. Neighbors: Fate, Rockwall, Wylie and Greenville. For statewide rules, see Texas.