Reasons for not having a passport
A car may not have a title for the following reasons:
- the car is pledged to the bank;
- the car is assembled from spare parts;
- the car was stolen and is wanted;
- the previous owner lost the title due to negligence.
Purchasing a car without a title can lead to unpleasant legal consequences. For example, a buyer pays for a stolen car, after which the sellers stop communicating. Then the new owner finds out that the documents for the car are fake, and collectors start calling him.
What are the difficulties of buying a car without documents?
A person who has consciously decided to buy a vehicle without paperwork must be prepared for the following problematic situations:
- The vehicle may be encumbered with debts or held as collateral. In this case, the new owner will have to deal with this situation (according to the purchase and sale agreement);
- The car may even be stolen and be wanted;
- Purchasing vehicles is prohibited by law. If a traffic police inspector stops a driver, a fine cannot be avoided.
A huge advantage is that a car without the appropriate documents can be 10 or more times cheaper. But the consequences of its acquisition can be much more serious.
How to insure yourself when buying a car without documents?
Unfortunately, it is impossible to legally issue a MTPL or CASCO policy. First of all, you need to draw up a purchase and sale agreement, then register the vehicle with the traffic police, receive a vehicle diagnostic card, and only after these procedures it is possible to insure your car.
There is also a law that says you can drive a vehicle without insurance, but only for ten days after purchasing it.
There is no point in insuring a car without another list of documents. Since a fine from traffic police inspectors cannot be avoided. However, if such a need nevertheless arises, you can seek help from a private agency that deals with the preparation of documents in any difficult situations.
How to restore PTS: procedure
To restore your PTS, you must complete the following steps.
Prepare documents
Required documents include the following:
- applicant's passport;
- property purchase agreement;
- act of acceptance and transfer of an object;
- a receipt confirming receipt of funds by the seller;
- an explanatory statement about the reasons for the absence of a title – it can be drawn up by both the seller (preferably) and the buyer;
- explanatory note describing the circumstances under which the car was purchased;
- STS;
- application for restoration of PTS;
- a receipt confirming payment of the state fee for registering the car and issuing a new title.
Sample application for restoration of PTS.doc
The state fee for issuing a duplicate passport is 1,650 rubles .
Contact the traffic police MREO
You must contact the territorial office of the MREO traffic police at the registration address of the new owner of the car. The car should be placed on an observation deck - employees should inspect the car and check the VIN numbers.
If you have any questions, you can contact us for free at the following phone numbers:
- Moscow ext. 143
- St. Petersburg ext. 702
- RF ext. 684
If you have any questions, you can consult for free by chatting with a lawyer at the bottom of the screen or by calling the following phone numbers:
- Moscow ext. 143
- St. Petersburg ext. 702
- RF ext. 684
If no problems are found, the applicant will receive a new passport. In some situations, the review takes several days, during which time staff conduct additional inquiries and reconciliations.
What to do if you bought a car without a title?
Good afternoon. I recently bought a car without a title and now I don’t know what to do with it and how to register it. Tell me, what should I do in this situation?
Purchases in the automobile market are made almost every hour. Buying a vehicle is a rather serious matter; you need to pay attention to two things: technical condition and documents.
As for documents, the most important, as you know, is the PTS, i.e. vehicle passport. It is he who participates, without exception, in all transactions made in relation to the car, so its presence with the owner during the sale is a prerequisite. But it also happens that a vehicle is purchased without a title. What actions to take in this case?
The absence of a title for a car can mean anything : it is in collateral, it has been seized, one of the spouses secretly wants to sell the property because the matter is headed for divorce, or the document may simply be lost, due to, for example, with moving, etc. There are a lot of options, but one fact is that the car was purchased without a title. It is possible to register such a car (of course, if it is truly “clean”), but it will not be without additional problems.
In order to register a problematic car without a title, you must have the following papers on hand:
- A correctly drawn up vehicle purchase agreement.
- Certificate of acceptance and transfer of the vehicle.
- A receipt confirming receipt of funds for the vehicle.
- An explanatory note that describes in detail the circumstances why the car’s passport is missing. Such an explanatory note can be written either by the owner of the car or by the person who bought the car and registers it. An explanation may also be required about the circumstances under which the car was purchased.
- Other documents relating to the car, indirectly confirming its “legality”. A good option if you have an STS (vehicle certificate) in hand.
- Receipt for payment of state duty. It is necessary to pay not only the state fee for registering the car, but also for issuing a new title.
- Application for restoration of PTS.
With a complete set of documents and the car that needs to be registered, you should go to the MREO traffic police department of the district where the new owner is registered. In such an unpleasant case as registering a car without a title, inspection of the car by employees will be simply mandatory, so you will first have to put the car on the inspection platform. After VIN numbers, etc. will be verified, and the traffic police officers will not have any questions about the car; based on the submitted documents, a new title will be issued. It may be issued immediately, or they may be asked to wait a few days to carry out additional checks that will rule out the criminality of the vehicle.
If you have any questions or require legal assistance in registering a car without a title, our online lawyer on duty is ready to promptly advise you.
How to register a car
After receiving your passport, you can register your car. In addition to the PTS, the owner must have with him:
- your passport;
- STS;
- purchase and sale agreement in 2 copies;
- photocopies of two pages of the previous owner’s passport;
- OSAGO policy – original and photocopy.
You can fill out and submit an application on the government services website and pay the state fee there.
Registration of a car registration certificate will require 850 rubles , issuing new license plates - 2850 rubles . If the previous numbers are retained, then the state duty for their registration will be 850 rubles.
After checking the car, employees issue a new STS, and a corresponding note is made in the PTS.
Traffic police officers may refuse to register your car. There are usually two reasons for this - the inability to verify the data (illegible numbers, their inconsistency with the data from the PTS, which requires a forensic examination) or the presence of significant changes in the design of the car.
Changes that prevent the registration of a car include the following:
- excessive tuning;
- the presence of lighting fixtures, tinted windows;
- changing the number of seats and their location (this also applies to fuel tanks);
- re-equipment of the chassis;
- change in dimensions and weight of the car;
- working with lighting equipment;
- change in wheel rim diameter.
If the previous owner made such adjustments to the design of the car without obtaining permission from the traffic police, then the car cannot be registered. Therefore, it is recommended that you check the machine thoroughly before purchasing it.
Is it possible to legally buy/sell a car without documents?
In order to avoid problems with the law, it is better to sell vehicles legally. If there are no documents, for example, they are lost, then this situation can be corrected.
To do this, you just need to take a few simple steps:
- You should come to the traffic police department at your place of registration and write an application for the restoration of documentation due to its loss;
- An employee of a government agency will present a receipt for payment of the state duty; it can be paid at any bank;
- Next, the entire list of documents must be presented to the department. You just have to wait a certain amount of time, usually from 1 to 3 days. After this time has expired, you can pick up new documents for the vehicle and sell your car legally.
It is worth considering that such manipulation can only be done if all the certificates are lost. Otherwise, restoration will be denied.
You can also perform a similar procedure when concluding a purchase and sale agreement. At the same time, the old and new owner must come to the traffic police department together. In this case, with mutual agreement, the vehicle will be registered in the name of the buyer.
How to check a car
It is necessary to check the technical condition of the machine in a specialized service.
It is also recommended that you check the vehicle's VIN, registration numbers or driver's license number before purchasing a vehicle.
When the vehicle is registered in Russia, there should be no problems - the service can be used for free on the traffic police website . When the car is registered abroad, you will need to contact the car database of the EU, USA or another country, spending about 5 euros .
If it turns out that the car is stolen, the new owner will need to explain for a long time to the police officers under what circumstances he received it. For this reason, it is recommended that you save all documents related to the car purchase transaction to avoid liability.
Necessary documents when buying and selling a car
There are only five main documents that will be required to conclude a purchase and sale transaction:
- Two identification documents are a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation and a driver’s license;
- Vehicle registration certificate (TC);
- Insurance policy, the most common CASCO or OSAGO;
- A diagnostic card (PTC), which is issued based on the results of a technical inspection of the vehicle.
The buyer only needs to present his passport. The first thing he must do before handing over the money is to check the relevant documentation. Using the car number through any website on the Internet, you can identify the presence of unpaid fines.
Additional features and nuances
If the seller warned the buyer that the car is pledged to the bank, then the parties draw up a purchase and sale agreement, after which the new owner goes with the previous owner to the bank and pays the balance of the loan. The difference is transferred to the previous owner. The bank returns the title to the buyer, after which the parties go to the traffic police to re-register the car and register it.
If the seller did not admit that the car was pledged to the bank and falsified the title, then the situation becomes more complicated. You will need to write a statement to the police, attaching all relevant documents to it, and then obtain payment of the loan by selling the property of the fraudulent seller.
It will be more difficult to achieve restoration of violated rights if the car is stolen or was assembled from different spare parts. The owner of such a vehicle may be subject to a heavy fine , and the vehicle itself may be confiscated. For this reason, before conducting a purchase and sale transaction, it is necessary to check the legal condition of the car.
Registration in the absence of documents
A vehicle (VV) that does not have a technical passport is not uncommon. For example, the number of people collecting rare pieces of equipment for which such documents were not issued or were lost a long time ago and were not needed has increased. The banal loss or theft of a PTS should not be written off either.
In any case, in order to purchase a car without a title and register ownership of it, you need to correctly conduct a vehicle purchase and sale transaction:
- Firstly, it is necessary to conclude the agreement itself confirming the transaction. It must contain information about the buyer and seller, what is being sold or purchased, the place where it was carried out, the date of preparation and the fact of payment. You can even conclude it with a third-party witness who will confirm its legality with his signature on the document. Paperwork must be completed carefully;
- secondly, you need to get a receipt from the person who is selling the vehicle that he received his money and has no claims. The form is free, the design is neat. The signature of the originator is required;
- thirdly, you will have to persuade the car seller to explain in writing where he got this vehicle from and why he does not have the necessary documents. The form is free. The design is attentive. Signature;
Now the buyer has three main documents in his hands that will help restore the title for this car and register the car with the traffic police without any problems. If you bought a car without a title, how do you register it?
How to register a car without documents?
Need to:
- With the received papers, come to the traffic police department at the place of registration.
- Submit an application for a vehicle title and a new registration number. The form is free. Attach copies of documents received from the seller.
As a result, either the car will be registered and its owner will receive a title, or this procedure will be denied. In the latter case, you need to go to court, since such a refusal is a direct violation of the law.
Let's sum it up
Thus, if the car was purchased without a title, the new owner will need to restore this document before registering the car. But before purchasing such a car, the buyer must make sure that the car is not the subject of a pledge, does not have a criminal history, and also that the previous owner has not made unauthorized changes to the design of the object.
Ruslan Sharshakov
Certified, practicing lawyer with 5 years of experience. In 2015 he graduated from the Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics with a degree in Law. Author's page
