Selling a junk or dead car in Seguin

The cover has to be the real thing

Section 46-181 defines an authentic car cover as "a fitted cover designed and manufactured specifically for covering a motor vehicle, and that is of the appropriate size and shape for the type of motor vehicle being covered." The other defenses are a car shut inside a building where no one can see it, stock at a licensed dealer or junkyard, and a collector's antique screened by a fence, trees or shrubbery.

None of that helps on land in a floodway. Section 46-187 bans nuisance vehicles there, and only one defense survives: the car is entirely inside a building.

What Seguin calls junked

Under Section 46-181, a junked vehicle is self-propelled and "displays an expired license plate or registration sticker or does not display any license plate or registration sticker." Beyond that, the car has to be a wreck, taken apart or thrown out, or out of service for over 72 hours running on public land or 30 days running on private land. Under Section 46-185 it becomes a public nuisance when it can be seen from any public place or right-of-way in Seguin, in any season of the year.

Current tags do not settle it. Section 46-184 tells the city to give "emphasis and priority" to cars that look done. If "the visual appearance from a public right-of-way would cause a reasonable person to believe the vehicle is mechanically unserviceable," action is immediate. The examples include broken windows, severe body damage, flat tires, blocked-up wheels, weeds grown up around the car, an exhaust or transmission "touching the ground," and junk piled inside as storage. Those cars must be repaired or removed "regardless of whether it has an unexpired license plate or a valid registration sticker."

The notice, the hearing and the fine

Section 46-189 has the city mail the notice certified, with a five-day return requested. Copies go to the lienholder, the registered owner, and the Seguin property owner or occupant. The car must be gone by the tenth day, and that a hearing request must come before the ten days run out. A returned notice holds action until at least the eleventh day after the return.

A municipal court judge hears the case. After the judge orders it, or once the hearing is waived, the city can tow it away for scrap or demolition, and rebuilding it afterward is barred. Fines reach $200, every day is its own offense, and a conviction means "the court shall order the removal" of the car.

The Code Compliance supervisor line is 830-401-2438. Police non-emergency: 830-379-2123.

Street limits

Under Section 46-122, a vehicle left alone more than 48 straight hours on a Seguin street, alley or other public place is a nuisance that police may move to the pound. Signed zones carry a two-hour limit, and Section 98-92 forbids "rolling tires or moving vehicles to a different parking space" to beat it. Under Section 46-124, a pounded car is redeemed by paying the director of police services the impounding fee and the city's actual costs.

Title work at the Guadalupe County office

The Guadalupe County tax office is at 307 W. Court, Ste 102, about 2 miles south of downtown Seguin as the crow flies, (830) 379-2315. The buyer takes the title application there, not you. Your signature goes on the title along with the sale date and odometer figure, and on Form 130-U next to the price. No notary, since Texas does not ask for one. Seguin sellers then have 30 days to send TxDMV a Vehicle Transfer Notification. Keep the plates for your next car, where the county moves them free, or deface them.

Your offer

Online or at (877) 421-6008, list the car's year, make and model, tell us if it runs, and whether it sits under a cover, in a garage or out in the yard. The truck meets the car there. Pickup reaches New Braunfels, Cibolo and Schertz too; for statewide rules, see Texas.