What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? North Dakota
Hello, I bought a motorcycle from someone at school about a month ago. It is a 89 gsx750f, and I got the title with the bike. Now after I had purchased it, I was excited about getting the bike and little had I known that the title was "invalid". I had the title in hand so I hadn't worried about any other problems. So I'm going to explain my problem as best as possible. I got a title that was designated in the state of Iowa. The two previous "owners" had title jumped and had not completed title transfer into their names (I'm assuming to avoid sales tax). The earliest owner (from the state of Iowa) isn't able to be contacted. I've looked the name and address up online to try and get some contact information and I ended up talking to the guys father, which I thought was weird because they both had the name of "Roy Al...", and so he told me I had been looking for the younger one and he had no way of contacting him. He seemed like a nice old guy so I held his word for it, he explained more than enough about his son and that he hadn't been in contact with him for years, so I was believing him and that's where that ended. That was the name on the "Signature/printed name of seller" lines. Now on the "signature/printed name of buyer" line, I have the name "Dane St....", which was crossed out and initialed by him, and then the next name "Jacob Br..." followed. The bike was sold to Dane by Roy, and Dane brought the bike up from Iowa to Minnesota, and than sold it to Jacob Br.. Dane had wrote out a letter on paper that was signed by him and this is what is noted along with the vehicle VIN#: " I Dane St.... no longer want to be on the title. I give Jacob Br... full rights to the title for bike 1989 Katana (gsx750f)." VIN# underneath that and both signatures of Dane and Jacob underneath the vin. Dane had also wrote down his personal number on the bottom, where I had contacted him. He told me that he had no information on Roy and that he couldn't help me. I got a bill of sale from Jacob just in case it was needed at the local DMV (North Dakota), and they were having none of it. I even went in a second time with Jacob to see if they would be able to transfer it to his name and they wouldn't do that either. I called a number that was given to me by the lady after the second time going in, and I talked to her about my situation(somebody in state office?). She pretty much told me the bike is worthless at this point because they can't do anything about the title unless I were to get an order of the court for the title transfer, or get Roy to fill out a 'statement of error, correction, or defacement' sheet, which is impossible unless it's legal for his dad to do it? So I'm left to just get an order of the court for this to all work. What am I looking at for expenses to get an attorney to help me do this? Is it even worth it? I feel like I just wasted $1500 all because a piece of paper.
Hello, I bought a motorcycle from someone at school about a month ago. It is a 89 gsx750f, and I got the title with the bike. Now after I had purchased it, I was excited about getting the bike and little had I known that the title was "invalid". I had the title in hand so I hadn't worried about any other problems. So I'm going to explain my problem as best as possible. I got a title that was designated in the state of Iowa. The two previous "owners" had title jumped and had not completed title transfer into their names (I'm assuming to avoid sales tax). The earliest owner (from the state of Iowa) isn't able to be contacted. I've looked the name and address up online to try and get some contact information and I ended up talking to the guys father, which I thought was weird because they both had the name of "Roy Al...", and so he told me I had been looking for the younger one and he had no way of contacting him. He seemed like a nice old guy so I held his word for it, he explained more than enough about his son and that he hadn't been in contact with him for years, so I was believing him and that's where that ended. That was the name on the "Signature/printed name of seller" lines. Now on the "signature/printed name of buyer" line, I have the name "Dane St....", which was crossed out and initialed by him, and then the next name "Jacob Br..." followed. The bike was sold to Dane by Roy, and Dane brought the bike up from Iowa to Minnesota, and than sold it to Jacob Br.. Dane had wrote out a letter on paper that was signed by him and this is what is noted along with the vehicle VIN#: " I Dane St.... no longer want to be on the title. I give Jacob Br... full rights to the title for bike 1989 Katana (gsx750f)." VIN# underneath that and both signatures of Dane and Jacob underneath the vin. Dane had also wrote down his personal number on the bottom, where I had contacted him. He told me that he had no information on Roy and that he couldn't help me. I got a bill of sale from Jacob just in case it was needed at the local DMV (North Dakota), and they were having none of it. I even went in a second time with Jacob to see if they would be able to transfer it to his name and they wouldn't do that either. I called a number that was given to me by the lady after the second time going in, and I talked to her about my situation(somebody in state office?). She pretty much told me the bike is worthless at this point because they can't do anything about the title unless I were to get an order of the court for the title transfer, or get Roy to fill out a 'statement of error, correction, or defacement' sheet, which is impossible unless it's legal for his dad to do it? So I'm left to just get an order of the court for this to all work. What am I looking at for expenses to get an attorney to help me do this? Is it even worth it? I feel like I just wasted $1500 all because a piece of paper.
