Purchasing a Vehicle with no Record of Registration
 

This might not deserve its own thread, but I'm looking for first hand experiences-- I'm pursuing a used vehicle that has lost its registration (no record of registration), but comes with a bill of sale.

My main concerns are:

• Timeline and overall turnaround
• Completing a statutory declaration
• VIN application

I've got this ICBC resource but I specifically would love to hear someone's first hand experience dealing with this.

Was it worth the hassle? Did it take long to complete? Were there any setbacks?

I sort of went through this process. I wanted to buy an old bike from a family acquaintance but I wanted real papers to go with it.

He followed your attached resource link precisely - and was able to easily obtain ownership papers. The notary walked him right through it. The process only took a couple of days IIRC

At that point I paid for the bike, and was able to regi it in my name.

Granted this was 10+ years ago, but I don't recall it being any trouble

(I see that it would be more work if an inspection was required (step 5). We didn't need to do this for the old bike)

Sort of first hand experience. :badpokerface:

I bought a 1971 Corolla that had no registration papers about 10 years ago...

I took the bill of sale and a declaration to the ICBC HQ in North Van and paid for a title search which happened right away... they looked up and gave me the information of the previous owner. I attended in person there rather than mail it because I didn't feel like getting a bloody money order or cheque for $7.00 lol...

I then had to send a APV9T and letter to the former owner at the address listed with a tracking# attached... eventually it came back as undeliverable and then ICBC allowd me to complete the transfer and register it in my name.

The longest part was waiting for the tracking to show up undeliverable.

There is some risk, there's a chance the previous registered owner could say "Hey I never sold that" and lay claim to it... after you already paid money and it could get ugly haha... but yah... I was confident in my case because after I got the info I looked the person up and saw they had died, but I suppose their estate could have laid claim to it.

Does the car have a VIN?

I did this with my abandoned civic in 2019, it took over 6 months. I called the office in N Van multiple times. There has to be at least 3 people in that department, from the sounds of it they each handle maybe 1 piece of paper per day. After it was all said and done my takeaway for the next time (before covid) was to hand deliver the mail to the office in N van. Not sure if they will let you do that with covid. I figured I can stamp at least 1 page a minute, no idea why these bastards are so lazy. I can't imagine they are trying to process thousands of vehicles.

In my case the original owner showed up and he signed the transfer papers.

I made a vid but never posted it. Here were my thoughts at the time.

I used to do a lot of work in section 235... Vehicle Registration... there's like 15 people in there + 2 for the collector plate program...

They're EXTREMELY busy... they do everything for vehicles and trailers and whatever else licensed you can think of that doesn't have status for the whole province as well as ANY issues that arise with registrations for vehicles that get kicked back from autoplan agents or CS call-ins...

They had no less than 2 people dedicated just to the specialized work I was involved in... but at the same time if you end up with a loser you end up with a loser and like every workplace there's some real losers.

The info above is all you should really need.

Just want to add that when buying a vehicle with no reg, it's only worth its value as a parts car. I've seen a lot of people go through the trouble of doing repairs before actually getting it reg'd in their name. Big no-no.

Take care of proper ownership first, otherwise consider it a parts car.

^ Yah this is very important... I was paying $800 for the car I bought so if it had failed I wouldn't really have been out