Moses Lake junk cars: the nuisance letter and the sale

What Chapter 10.36 counts as junk

Section 10.36.010 reaches any "junk vehicle, parts thereof, or automobile hulk as defined in Chapter 46.55 RCW." That state chapter wants three of four boxes ticked: "three years old or older," "extensively damaged," "apparently inoperable," and a value "equal only to scrap." Damage there means things like a smashed windshield or a missing motor. A decade-old sedan with a seized engine and a spider-webbed windshield ticks three.

Fifteen days, or twenty

Before acting, the Building Official or the Police Department may reach out to the landowner to ask whether the landowner claims the car. Then one of two waits applies:

• Mailed form. Once the car "remains unclaimed more than fifteen (15) days after the junk vehicle notification form was mailed," the city may haul it away and report it wrecked to the State Patrol and to Licensing.
• Published notice. When notice runs in print instead, the wait is "more than twenty (20) days."

The nuisance letter itself says the city "will proceed to abate such public nuisance by removal" fifteen days after it is dated.

A court hearing, if you want one

The registered owner on file, or the land owner, may "request a hearing before the judge of the Municipal Department of the District Court." Two things are up for argument: whether the car is a nuisance at all, and whether you are the one responsible for it.

Ephrata, 19 miles out

Grant County's Auditor, at 35 C Street NW in Ephrata, (509) 754-2011, is one office we checked. Measured in a straight line it sits about 19 miles northwest of central Moses Lake. Washington's Department of Licensing (DOL) relies on county auditors and subagents for title work, and it suggests buyer and seller finish the handover at a licensing office.

Your part as seller, in order:

1. Sign away your interest in the title's release block.
2. Write up a bill of sale with the buyer. DOL skips it only when the title itself records the price and date.
3. Unscrew the plates. They do not pass to the new owner.
4. Report the sale to DOL inside 5 days. Delivering a car to a wrecking yard triggers this too.

Notarizing falls to the buyer in Washington, on the Vehicle Title Application. Lost the title? Start with selling with no title.

Getting an offer

Use the form or ring (877) 421-6008. Let us know the car and its year, the miles showing, if it can run, and where things are with the title. Our driver comes out to wherever the car is stuck, a side street off 3rd Avenue or a farm lot past the city limits. Wenatchee (53.7 miles in a straight line) and Richland (58.1) have pages too, and state rules sit on the Washington page.