Selling a junk or dead car in Terrell

Section 7-4, in plain terms

Terrell's test has two halves. First, paperwork: the car (or a piece of one) moves under its own power and lacks an unexpired plate registration or a valid inspection certificate. Second, condition: it's wrecked, dismantled, discarded, or it has sat broken past the limit. The limit is 72 consecutive hours if the car is on public property, 30 consecutive days if it's on private land.

Anywhere the public can look at it, or on a right-of-way, a junked vehicle is a declared public nuisance. Letting one stay is an offense. The court can fine you as much as $200 per day, treats every day as a fresh offense, and on conviction orders the car abated and hauled off.

Only a car shut inside a building, where it's hidden from the street and the neighbors, sits outside section 7-4. Dealers and junkyards get a pass for cars kept "in connection with the business," and so does a collector's antique or special interest car. Both apply only if the area stays orderly, isn't a health hazard, and hides behind a fence, trees or shrubbery.

How a case moves

The code tells the city to "send written notice via certified mail, return receipt requested within five days, to the last known registered owner of the junked vehicle; to any known lienholder of record of the junked vehicle; and to the owner or occupant of the property on which the junked vehicle is located." Posting or handing it over also works. From there you get until day ten to clear the car out, and if you want a hearing, ask in writing before the deadline. A hearing can't happen before the 11th day. At it, Terrell assumes the car doesn't run unless you prove it does.

You can also ask the city to take it. First, the person asking "must execute an authorization and indemnification agreement," which lets the city onto the land and holds it harmless. What the city removes goes for scrap or salvage, and nobody may rebuild it.

Streets and towed cars

Section 11-34 bans "overnight parking for storage," which it defines as "the habitual parking or storing of cars, trucks, tractors, or other vehicles on streets or rights-of-way during the hours from sundown to sunup." A car broken down for the moment and protected by flares is the exception.

The code calls "any motor vehicle which is inoperable and over five years old and left unattended on public property for more than 48 hours" abandoned, and police may take it. Within ten days they mail a certified letter. The owner then has until the twentieth day after the letter to get the car back. The code says the owner "may redeem the same by paying the impounding fee and any other actual expenses or charges incurred by the city." An unclaimed car goes to public auction.

The paperwork, from Kaufman County

Kaufman County's tax office, at 100 N. Washington St. in the town of Kaufman, takes calls at (469) 376-4596. As the crow flies, that's roughly 10 miles south of central Terrell. It's the buyer, not you, who applies there for a new title. Until that happens, the state title record still lists you as the owner.

So close the loop yourself:

• Sign the title over after filling in the date and the odometer reading. Texas doesn't want a notary.
• Put your signature on the buyer's Form 130-U next to the agreed sale amount.
• Inside 30 days, report the sale on Form VTR-346 or at TxDMV.gov/VTN.

Your plates can come off with you. Terrell drivers can have the county office move them onto another car for free, with a new sticker. Kaufman County still requires emissions tests (it's one of 17 counties), so a buyer may need your last inspection report to register the car.

Getting an offer

Online or at (877) 421-6008, give us the make and model, its year, about how far it's been driven, whether it cranks, and the title story. The truck can come to a house near downtown, a shop on Highway 80, or wherever the car quit. Close by: Forney and Rockwall. Statewide: Texas.