Selling a dead or junk car in Temple

When Temple calls a car junked

Chapter 40 borrows its junked-vehicle rules from state law, Transportation Code chapter 683, subchapter E. Under Temple's ordinance, a self-propelled vehicle qualifies when wrecked, discarded, or fully or partly taken apart. Temple also counts a car that has sat dead over 72 straight hours on public property, or over 30 straight days on private land. The same list includes a car whose plate is missing or expired.

Temple's Code Compliance page says it in fewer words: an inoperable car without current license and inspection, dead for 30 straight days on private Temple property or 3 on public property. Visible to the public from a street or right-of-way, in any season, it becomes a public nuisance. Fixing it falls to the owner, occupant or tenant of the lot.

Parking it inside a closed building, out of sight, may take it outside the rule. Car covers and tarps appear nowhere in the exceptions.

Notice, then ten days, then one official

The code enforcement manager is in charge. Three people hear from Temple in writing. They are the registered owner, any lienholder, and the land's owner or renter. Temple delivers it in person, by USPS signature confirmation, or certified with a five-day return requested. Where no owner address turns up, it may be posted on the car.

In Temple, by day ten the car has to be moved, or the owner must ask for a public hearing. That hearing happens before the code enforcement official, who will treat the car as dead unless you prove it runs. The decision is final and binding and can call for removal on the spot.

Signing written consent to removal within the ten days also counts as compliance and halts enforcement. A car Temple takes is sent to a scrapyard, demolisher or public site, and it "cannot be rebuilt or made operable" afterward.

In municipal court the charge is a Class C misdemeanor. Temple's fine ceiling is $200, and each extra day is another count.

Grass, curbs and the impound lot

Chapter 40 lists parking on a lawn or any unpaved, unimproved ground as a nuisance unless the car is screened the way the Unified Development Code asks. On a street, alley or city lot, Temple allows two days in one spot, no more.

If police impound a car under a Chapter 37 order, getting it back means proving ownership to the municipal court clerk, or to the police when court is closed, and paying the fines, costs, impound and storage. A hearing officer can set up payments. The lot holding the car may not demand that you sign a liability release until you have had a real chance to look over the car and its contents.

Code Compliance sits at 2 N Main Street, 254-298-5670, codecompliance@templetx.gov. For reporting a violation, the city lists 254-298-5000.

Bell County title, plates and old cars

Bell County's tax assessor-collector, at 550 E. 2nd Avenue in Belton, (254) 933-5318, is roughly 6 miles southwest of downtown Temple as the crow flies. Your buyer takes the paperwork there. From you: the title signed over and dated, mileage written in, and Form 130-U signed with what was paid. Then file a Vehicle Transfer Notification inside 30 days; TxDMV takes it online, and VTR-346 is the paper form. Plates are yours to keep, though the sticker cannot follow them.

An old car with no title can still go. A used parts recycler may take one untitled if it has reached 13 years of age, is bought just for parts or scrap, and has gone unregistered for seven years or more.

Getting an offer

Phone (877) 421-6008 or fill in the year, make, model and whether it cranks online. The truck shows up wherever the car is parked. Nearby: Belton 6.5 miles, Harker Heights 15.5, Killeen 20.4. State rules: Texas.