How to buy a dead guy's car
 

There has been a 2000 VW Jetta parked at my apartment complex for over 1.5 years now. It never moves and no one touches it. I finally decided to look into who owns it and what it would take for me to buy it cheap.

I found out the owner was a college student that drove a rental car to california and jumped off a bridge killing himself. This is a true story, there is a newspaper article about it. Pretty messed up, but I want to buy his car. I can't find his family though and i don't own the property its parked on.

How can I obtain this car legally?

I've been reading this :
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Title-t...ndoned-Vehicle

It has some good info but I'm not sure what the best approach would be to get into this car. Anyone have any suggestions?

I read your headline and though: "Wait! Don't kill him yet!"

Is the car parked where the guy used to live? I would talk to the landlord / owner of the area where the car is parked. They would probably be quite interested in getting rid of it by now. And since they have had to clean out his place, they probably have some contacts with the family too. Since the car technically is the property of his parents now, I would not break into it. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

well thats quite a story ... let us know

btw you got into this miata business (or at least joined the mt.net forum) a few months after me yet have 3.714 times as many posts as i do ... get a life man


jk, peace chad

Replace the rims and tires and then put a mechanic's lean on it.... long shot, but technicalities have weird outcomes. :giggle:

why would you want a VW to begin with? Get something more reliable.

You may want to see what you can get from the DMV on it. The car could have a lean from being financed which means it would belong to the bank. If it did belong to the bank, they would probably take what ever was left owed on it or a percentage of.

Just go to DMV with the VIN, file and abandoned vehicle report on it. They will give you a letter you have to mail through certified mail to the PO (they will give you the name and address of the last person it was registered to) then you have to mail that and they have 30 days to respond. If they don't respond (if he's dead they can't) then the car is yours after 30 days. I would recommend having the car towed somewhere before doing this if it's just in an apartment parking lot (not in someone's driveway IOW) so that if a wife/gf/parent wants the car they have to come talk to you about it and you can then attempt to lowball them to buy it before telling them where it is.

I got two eclipses and a talon sitting together that al belonged to the same guy like this once. They were sitting by a construction site for about a year, went and filed the paperwork...dude knocked on my door like six months later, turned out he had been in jail...woops...sold them back to him for 4500, not bad considering i hadn't done anything with them yet and the titling process cost me all of 90 bucks.

my gf failed at registering her car because her dad was still on the title. her dad passed away 5 yrs ago. she has to mail a form all over the planet to get signatures from surviving relatives.

Some states have an adandoned vehicle policy. in AL you can run an ad with the cars description of 30 days, if no one response you can take the photos and the ad to the DMV and re-title it to your name and pay the taxes on the book value of the vehicle.

Some people use this method to steal cars (run the ad in a paper you know won't be seen), other use it to re-title cars that had a salvage title in other states (FL/LA flood cars).

marxist alabama ftl.

Im curious to see where this goes, please keep us informed. Also this sounds like a situation where you should tread lightly.

You know the previous owner rented a car to drive to cali for a reason.

I'd say that there is a dead body in the trunk of it then....

be careful, and Id try what Kplafkin said. Though its a vw, so dont put TOO much effort into it imo :)

Well, atleast he didn't kill himself in the car.....then it would def. have dead guy juju. Bad juju at that.

Thanks for all the good advice guys I will look up our local abandoned car laws to see what I can do.

I do know that he left the car here for a reason. I was actually here when they dropped it off the the flat bed tow truck. That was the last time it moved. At the time the guy said the motor was bad but who knows maybe it has a bad ground or something retarded. I won't know unless I check into it.

I figure if I can get into the car for less than $500 through different fee's and a replacement key I will be able to sell it off and make a few bucks.

yay for dead thread reviving! Anything happen with this?

Subscribed for inevitable pics of Check Engine Light.

C

lol