Procedure After Buying A Second-Hand Car
My daughter sold her old car to my son after buying a new one. She wants to take that car off her insurance. My son is not ready, financially, to transfer the title into his name or onto his present car insurance policy. If we just turn in my daughter's NJ plates to the DMV, is that sufficient for her to be able to cancel her insurance without any sort of future penalty,, or does the title have to be transferred to my son too?
Anyone know?
Lonesome Dove My mother sold her car to my brother last year. There was a form for her insurance company she had to fill out to cancel the insurance and send back with a copy of the dmv receipt from surrendering the plates. Contact the insurance company first and they can email the form.
Indy5 
stephen Do you have a garage to keep the car in after your daughter removes the plates? It's illegal to have an unregistered vehicle on your property.
Calico696 
ConsigliereI thought the same. Even bickered with my husband about it. A police officer friend of ours confirmed it to be true. Different towns apparently have different limits on how long it can be there. Some a couple days, some a month etc.
Unregistered vehicle on the property is dependent upon the town where you live. They tend be more nuisance laws so Joe Blow doesn't have 6 cars on his front lawn. Look at town laws to see if true as far as I know NJ doesn't have a state law for it.
If the title is signed over, she can turn the plates in and cancel the insurance.(best way) Heck you can sign the title over, take a picture of it signed, keep the plates on it for nuisance laws and cancel the insurance. (skirting legal) Shy of it getting stolen or your son driving it before he transfers ownership and insures it, it would be easist to turn the plates in and cancel the insurance. If your son takes more than the 14 days NJ alots for transferring ownership they hit you with a fee for it. I don't remember the number but its small.
There are others ways to "sit" on a vehicle but this forum will crucify me for even mentioning them.
younggen 
callitlikeIseeit Lonesome Dove
They are correct that depending on the town your son can be hit with a violation of local code. Normally you'll get a warning from the town zoning official who'll post a warning on your son's front door if your son's not home when the official visits due to a complaint or by just driving by and seeing it in the driveway. The threshold for a violation varies from town to town too as to whether the car just hasn't moved and looks inoperable, or you need plates or if the inspection and registration has to be current.
If it's in a garage or has a locking car cover on it, then many times that's overlooked since nobody knows what its status is, however if anything happens due to that car being where it is, then your son would be held liable for any injuries or property damage.
A car that is inoperable or without plates, current registration, etc. is often either deemed "abandoned" or a "junk" car, which is what the violation is termed. The warning normally gives you a certain amount of time to either bring the vehicle to "legal" status, sell it, or move it off that property (or into a garage). As the Hopatcong zoning officer responded when I emailed him years ago, "if you can drive it to Town Hall and show me a current registration and insurance card, then I don't have to have it written up or removed."
Yes, that means they can either write you a zoning violation or depending on the town have it towed off the property, in which case that's a whole lot of headaches.
Since he's priced the insurance on it, what he could do is to get a quote from the insurance company to have the minimum required level on it and make sure the quote is with 0 or a very minimal miles per year on it, then of course NOT drive it until he can afford the normal amount and then change the mileage amount to what he will be driving it at. Some companies have a lower separate fee for a car that is in storage or not currently in use and he should check with the insurance company about that. That's a much safer way to go than skirting the law.
In my case, the car was fully registered and insured, but I'd transferred the plates from it to another car I'd bought at auction. I'd been going to apply for Historic plates for it, but couldn't find my Title at the time. Of course that's when some guy who'd had a complaint filed against him by a neighbor decided he was going to go on a crusade and lodge a complaint against any car he saw that in any way looked as though they may be in violation... Of course to get the duplicate title I found I had to call Ford Motor Credit to get a "Lien Release" which apparently was not on record from when I'd paid off the car more than 20 years before, and they kept getting that wrong, so my situation was tenuous until I was able to get everything taken care of and send him proof of proper documentation and plates.
Phil D. Just cancel the sold vehicle off the insurance. Once that’s done, surrender the plates to dmv. Make sure she signs the title before giving it to him. Sold car done with.
Your son needs to get it insured before getting it registered and the title signed over. They ask for proof of insurance when doing both.
Don't date the title when your daughter signs it. Son only has 10 days after the date to put it in his name or there is a penalty. Date it when he's ready to transfer
JWolfe75 I love how people give all kinds of advice without citing any sources haha. The vehicle is not "abandoned" on private property per the state if the property owner owns the vehicle. See https://www.state.nj.us/mvc/vehicletopics/abandoned.htm
This is meant for private property owners who have had a vehicle abandoned on their property by someone else, not themselves.
Then the only issue is if the municipality has a law specifies the rules of unregistered vehicles on private property. The Hackettstown Charter and General Code ordinance doesn't have regulations on unregistered vehicles on private property, it appears to only mention public property:
https://www.hackettstown.net/sites/hackettstownnj/files/uploads/hackettstown_charter_and_general_code_2018.pdf
I'm assuming the vehicle will be kept in Hackettstown, otherwise the local ordinances of the municipality where the vehicle will sit should be researched.
Part of buying a car is titling it and paying the tax. Your son needs to do that to complete the sale. Then keep the car on private property in a municipality that does not have any laws against that until he can afford to register and insure it.
Your daughter needs to call the insurance company and see what they require to remove a vehicle from the policy. They may want the plate surrender receipt, but every company is different.
Oranges918 We sold 2 vehicles last year. You need to surrender the plates, get the receipt from DMV & get it to your insurance company, then they will cancel it from your policy.
tmb6123 Lonesome Dove
If your daughter pays her car insurance online, she should be able to remove her old vehicle from the policy and just state the reason it should be removed, as in "sold vehicle". Within the last year I've sold three and all I had to do was log into my USAA account and go to the remove/add vehicle page. A couple of clicks and it was done and my monthly payment went down. They showed everything, including what my new yearly premium was by deleting the car(s) I'd sold. Easy peasy as some say. Most don't normally ask for a plate surrender receipt because it's possible to have those plates transferred to a new vehicle. However, if not being transferred to a new vehicle, it is important to go to the MVC and surrender the plates and get a receipt so there's no chance of her being held liable for them getting lost or stolen and put on another car, but that's easy too. When I bought my new (to me) car, I could have transferred the plates from one of my old ones (except the Historic vehicle ones) to my new car and saved a few dollars, but since I was going to keep the old car for a few more months, I just went for new ones. I don't recommend the mail in method though - too many chances for things to go wrong:
https://www.state.nj.us/mvc/vehicles/aboutplates.htm
Oranges918
That's why I said that each municipality has their own rules and that her son should check the ones in place in the municipality he lives in. I couldn't assume he lives within the City of Hackettstown because he could live anywhere in or even out of the local area. Lonesome Dove didn't specify where he lives, so it would be a waste of time just to look up the City of Hackettstown if he actually lives in Washington Twp., Morris County or somewhere else.
I DID just use your own link to look up the law and apparently you missed page 1108 where it mentions Article 3, section 11-21 that it's a violation on public OR private property unless in a secured garage, just for the reasons I mentioned. After receiving the violation notice the vehicle owner has 10 days to take care of the issue or is liable for a fine up to $500!
Her daughter only has to notify the insurance company that she sold the car. to be able to take it off her insurance, at least in most cases. I gave my situation as an example to show what can happen if he leaves it uninsured and unregistered depending on the local laws where he's at, based on the law where I lived at the time.
I was more worried about her son's case, as he has more possibility of incurring charges or liability by having the vehicle unsecured. If he rents, many places have policies in place prohibiting that and allowing them to tow it away. If he owns a house and a pet or child that fools around in, on or near it, (even if they don't belong there) and they get injured could have his homeowner's policy refuse to cover him. Seriously, it's just too much of a can of worms, which is why I suggested that he look into getting a bare minimum for that car, just so he can remain legal.
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