Selling a junk or dead car in Tyler

What Tyler counts as junked

The city's definition has two parts, and a car must meet both. First, it is wrecked, stripped down, or discarded; or it has sat unable to run beyond 72 consecutive hours on a Tyler street or other public property, or beyond 30 consecutive days on private property. A wrecked or discarded car qualifies with no waiting at all. Second, it shows an expired license plate or no plate.

Sec. 18-31 then declares any such car a public nuisance, and unlawful, wherever it sits in Tyler, provided someone in a public place could see it at any time of year.

The way out is narrow. Park it inside a lawful building, hidden from Tyler streets and from every neighboring property, public or private. Dealers, junkyards, collectors with antique or special-interest cars, and commercial storage may instead screen with a fence, fast-growing trees, shrubbery or a fitted car cover. A tarp never counts.

Ten days, five choices

When Code Enforcement finds a junked car, notice goes to the last known registered owner, each lienholder of record, and whoever owns, occupies or controls the property. It can arrive by hand, certified mail, or USPS signature confirmation. When no address is known for the owner, the notice may simply be left on the car.

From delivery or mailing you get 10 days to remove the nuisance, and the same 10 days to ask for a hearing. The notice spells out the choices:

• repair the car so it no longer meets the definition
• haul it to a scrapyard or demolisher
• store it lawfully
• ask the Municipal Court for a hearing
• let the city take it, with no removal cost charged to you

Tyler's Municipal Court will not hold the hearing until at least day 11 after service, and there the burden is on you to show the car is operable.

Things change if the case runs to a court order, or you miss the hearing deadline. Sec. 18-34 then lets Code Enforcement staff, Tyler police or a contractor remove the car, and it says "all costs of removal shall be personal obligation of the owner." The car cannot be rebuilt or made operable afterward. Within five days, the city asks the state to cancel the title.

Keeping a junked-vehicle nuisance is an offense; the fine tops out at $200, and the court that convicts also orders the car abated and removed. Towing it across town once the case is open has "no effect on the proceeding" if it is a nuisance at the new address. Tyler's code also lets Code Enforcement staff and police step onto private land to inspect a junked car and learn whose it is.

Street storage and the city pound

Sec. 17-83 bars parking on a street or alley "for the purpose of storing, displaying, repairing, or waiting for repairs." A vehicle that stays in the same place for more than forty-eight hours is presumed to be stored there, and an officer may make the driver move it off the street.

For a car held at a City pound, Sec. 4-8(b) sets storage at $12 a day. That figure dates from a 1998 ordinance, and no current fee schedule was found. The owner or an agent "may remove a vehicle from a City pound location only after all towage and accrued storage fees have been paid." A vehicle left unclaimed for 30 days is disposed of under that chapter. Towed or impounded covers the choices once a car is in a lot.

Who to call in Tyler

Code Enforcement takes junked-vehicle reports at (903) 531-1312. Give the address, the violation and a callback number; reports are anonymous. The city says seven officers handle more than 8,000 code violations a year across 40 case types. The police department page lists (903) 531-1100 at 711 W. Ferguson St. and says to call 911 for emergencies.

Smith County title office and Texas rules

The Smith County tax assessor-collector is at 1517 West Front Street, about 2 miles north of the middle of Tyler as the crow flies. The phone is (903) 590-2920.

Texas has a route for cars whose titles are long gone. State law gives used automotive parts recyclers a narrow exception. They may buy a titleless car that is 13 years old or more and unregistered for seven years or more, as long as it is bought solely for parts, dismantling or scrap. The recycler reports it to TxDMV and holds it, three business days if there is no lien. Our junk car with no title guide explains the other paths.

Texas labels a car "nonrepairable" when damage leaves it worth something only as parts or scrap metal, or when it is surrendered for dismantling. Its title is branded nonrepairable, and from then on the law limits the car to parts and scrap-metal use; see salvage title.

Whatever the paperwork, TxDMV wants a Vehicle Transfer Notification from you no more than 30 days after the sale. Plates and sticker are yours to remove. Reuse the plates on another car of the same type, hold onto them, or deface them if they are going in the garbage. The Texas page has the full state rules.

Towns near Tyler

The closest towns with pages, measured straight-line, are Longview at 34.8 miles, Marshall at 57.7, Nacogdoches at 62.0, Terrell at 64.3 and Corsicana at 69.8.

Getting an offer

Call (877) 421-6008 or go online. Give us the car, its rough mileage, whether the motor turns, and the name on the title. We send the truck to it, from a house near downtown to a lot by the lake.