Georgia titles

Buying a car there. How do the titles there work? Notary needed?

No notary required, just fill out and sign. Georgia allows 7 days to register, not sure about your state.

In reply to tomtomgt356 :

Cool. Im assuming that i play by Georgia rules as its a Georgia car and title. 

In north Carolina everything has to be notarized. 

Correct, Georgia does not require a notary on the title. This does sometimes lead to people who flip cars not bothering to completely fill out the title, which can sometimes get you stuck on the hook for a year or so of back taxes but generally won't get any other consequences.

The biggest "gotcha" that tripped me up once is that if there are two names on the title, you need to get both people to sign it to transfer the title. Can't have just one owner sign over a two-owner title.

Also, 1963 and older vehicles don't have titles at all, and 1964-1985 vehicles might have titles, but often don't. These are transferred with a bill of sale. Not sure how that would work for an out of state buyer.

This one is a 96 neon. The seller said no notary, but i wanted to know for sure. I trust here FAR more than google or craigslist guy.

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

If you need to have a title on a vehicle sold without, there are a few ways to go about it (at Georgia DMV).

If the car is currently registered, keep a copy of the previous owners (current) registration, the DMV will accept that along with signed bill of sale as a transfer of ownership.

Another option is to call the non-Emergency like and have the local police come fill out a specific form (they'll run the VIN), and then the DMV accepts that with signed bill of sale to transfer ownership.

I did this with my Courier, and when I moved to Michigan I brought a current registration from Georgia and was assigned a Michigan title. If I want to buy another untitled vehicle in Georgia, I will probably have a family member buy/register the vehicle, and then sell it to me. That way I can end up with a titled vehicle.

Your process may be the same - as long as you have bill of sale and registration, or bill of sale and police report stating all is okay, you can likely get by with a vehicle even without a title. 

Buying one with a title is easy :)

No notary

This information may or may not be useful, but I mention it only because NC is a notary state:  Kentucky is also a notary state and bringing in a title from a non-notary state gets a little odd.  The first thing that I run in to is that the clerk at the courthouse first starts looking all over the non-notary state title for a notary seal.  That will typically throw them for a little bit of a loop when they realize that the title has no little line that says "Witness my hand on _______, 19__ and my commission expires _________, 19___".    At that point, I'll explain to them that Indiana is not a notary state and doesn't require titles to be notarized.  And they'll usually figure that out pretty fast and then present me with a TC96182 form, Application for Kentucky Certificate of Title.  And that form requires the seller's signature and that signature to be notarized.

So, while Georgia may not require a title to be notarized, North Carolina might require some other form that they've cooked up to have a notary stamp on it.  I don't know for sure, but it might be worth a trip in to the local office just to ask before you get into a situation.

You can get around all that, however, if Georgia will let you apply for a title with an NC address (and I think most states will) and then once you have the GA title in your name, you can take that to the NC clerks.  But there may be tax implications there where you have to pay the tax in GA for the first title and then again when you bring it into NC.

I'm sure it's state specific, but Ohio is also a notary state and I've bought two cars from no-notary states (GA and CA) and the people at the title office have never seemed the slightest bit confused by it. I think the first time I called the office to confirm that I didn't need anything but the signed title.

NC doesn't require anything strange for an out of state non notary title. I just did this in Dec. GA to NC. You don't even have to get the car inspected.