Ca vehicle registration dilemma

What is the name of your state?California

I bought a car from a tow yard that had liened the car and parked it in my driveway. Due to a death in the family and other such turmoil, I have lost all paperwork and I never completed the process of transfering ownership. It has been well over a year now. What penalties and/or issues do I face when I go to the dmv to register the damn thing? How do I go about the lost bill of sale?

Go back to the tow yard and ask them for a copy of the bill of sale. If they don't have it, ask them to fill out a new one.

It was a guy AT the tow yard that I bought it from but it wasn't during the regular auction and the guy is not there anymore so I don't know if that would help.

Something sounds fishy here. If the tow yard was authorized to sell the vehicle, they should have given you a bill of sale and kept a copy for their records. Whether the specific person you bought it from is there or not shouldn't matter.

Teflon's right, and the DMV is going to want taxes, fees and fines for not registering the car at the beginning....probably more than it's worth.

I registered a motorcycle I had bought and lost all the paperwork to by filing a statement of facts and bringing it in to the dmv to have the serial #'s read.

But CJ, you know how to talk them DMV folk's language.

The dmv language has alot of words with $$ in them. Cj speaks a slightly different dialect that I too have mastered (it's quite simple really, you just throw in a little brown-nose here and there like "hey, I like your tie" and such). I was going to just claim it as an abandoned vehicle but I could not find a form for that so I wan't sure how to do that. Anyone know?

Google "statement of facts (Reg 256)". Section "C" would appear to be the area of interest, along with the actual "statement" at the end of the form. As the site notes, you can (and should) contact the DMV for more specific info.

How's the weather, Dallas? I know a few folks who fled Houston recently...