Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

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raiddrten
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Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#1

Post by raiddrten »

I make it a habit to NOT buy untitled motorcycles. Without going into a really long story, I find myself in possession of a little 450 Nighthawk. it came from a relative and after he promised to produce a title and could not,[because of a messy divorce] I determined by using a title check service run by the insurance industry that the bike is not stolen. [link] https://www.nicb.org/how-we-help/vincheck

Some states like Michigan allow RESIDENTS to get new titles for old bikes below a certain value, and my lovely daughter lives there. I certainly think that she could get it done and then sell that bike back to me. The bike is a cream puff and instead of a parts bike, i could sell it titled and running to fund some or all of my Gold Wing build.

If anyone lives in MI and would like to chime in on what if anything that I am missing, I am all ears. BTW, i am not interested in the Vermont loophole that so many talk about. Ohio BMV sees that from a mile away
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Lucien Harpress
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#2

Post by Lucien Harpress »

...I want to say (and I could be wrong) if the previous owner was a Michigan resident, there is a slip to fill out that basically has the SoS can run the title, and if it's not reported stolen, they will give out a new title. I want to say the recipient of the new title has to live in Michigan as well.

Let me see if I can get a form number. I did a bit of looking into this for my non-titled CT90, but it's been a while.

EDIT: It's a TR-205. There's some other hoops to jump through, and it may or may not work, but it's a start? Good luck.
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propav8r
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#3

Post by propav8r »

NC has a similar form...I've used it before. I couldn't find a paper title for a car, and just went to the DMV and did a title reassignment to the buyer. I think it was an extra $15.

If the person you bought the bike from was the last registered owner of the bike in question, it shouldn't be too hard.
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raiddrten
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#4

Post by raiddrten »

The last titled owner lives in Ohio, and her husband received the bike in a divorce. He was stupid and did not get the title recorded, and then lost the signed over title. They do not get along, so she is in no mood for a do-over. The bike has not been reported stolen, as he still has the divorce papers proving it is his. Ohio BMV is impossible to work with. Complicated,no?

Anyway, i thought that you Michigan guys might be buying Ohio barn finds with no title and turning them into registered bikes. There are thousands of bikes down here that sit for years and then the owner dies and maybe his spouse dies as well and no way to clear the title. When Ohio did away with the paper titles and went to computer, the registered owners disappeared unless that paper title survived. Sort of like the Old and New testament and the New testament is on the computer and the Old Testament survives , but only on paper until you drag your individual Bible to the BMV for a reboot.

The only other way to possibly get a title down here is to own a storage unit and the tenant disappears and you advertise that he pay up his rent on the unit to get his stuff back. Then you take it to court for a new title. Sheriff checks for a stolen bike and then the judge [may] issue a new title. The trouble is, I stood up for myself in her court one time and was proven right. In this county and that judge they never forget someone questioning them. Besides that I do not want to give them one penny for court fees the way they play the game.
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#5

Post by raiddrten »

I read the Michigan law, and it states three ways to get a title if you do not know where to find the owner. The one that appeals the most to me is buying a surety bond for three years for twice the value of the bike. After three years, the bike is yours. Depending on what a surety bond costs to maintain until it is returned would probably be worth it. It seems too easy, so I don't know

You can self certify a bike worth less than 2500.00 if you cannot find the owner, but it looks like a lot of hoops to jump through and lying under oath

Reference link.http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-12 ... -F,00.html
Question number 18 would apply
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#6

Post by robin1731 »

Jeez, sounds like it would be easier to buy a titled frame and swap everything over. That's what I did with the bike in my avatar and have done it other times too.

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raiddrten
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#7

Post by raiddrten »

After further research and using the references [TR-205] , it looks pretty impossible. I would have to have a title bond and MI no-fault insurance, and the title really just puts the bike on the road with a license plate, but the ownership of the bike is still up in the air, with absolutely no guarantees the PO could come back and get it whenever they wanted. Something like that might be OK if i were to keep the bike and run it, buy no way would I want to sell it.

Ohio's law for junk vehicles is a PITA. I had a tenant abandon a truck [his brother's ] in the driveway to my rental property so i called the cops to report it and I thought to tow it away. I was not even allowed to touch it, but they wanted to issue me a fine because it had expired tags, and by allowing it on my property [even though I was ordered not to touch it] I was not allowed to have it towed, either. Catch 22 for sure

The doors were not locked, and 'somehow' the thing got out of gear and rolled into the alley and into a posted tow away church parking lot. Darn neighborhood kids, I guess.
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#8

Post by CYBORG »

raiddrten wrote:After further research and using the references [TR-205] , it looks pretty impossible. I would have to have a title bond and MI no-fault insurance, and the title really just puts the bike on the road with a license plate, but the ownership of the bike is still up in the air, with absolutely no guarantees the PO could come back and get it whenever they wanted. Something like that might be OK if i were to keep the bike and run it, buy no way would I want to sell it.

Ohio's law for junk vehicles is a PITA. I had a tenant abandon a truck [his brother's ] in the driveway to my rental property so i called the cops to report it and I thought to tow it away. I was not even allowed to touch it, but they wanted to issue me a fine because it had expired tags, and by allowing it on my property [even though I was ordered not to touch it] I was not allowed to have it towed, either. Catch 22 for sure

The doors were not locked, and 'somehow' the thing got out of gear and rolled into the alley and into a posted tow away church parking lot. Darn neighborhood kids, I guess.
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#9

Post by Pineiro »

raiddrten wrote:I read the Michigan law, and it states three ways to get a title if you do not know where to find the owner. The one that appeals the most to me is buying a surety bond for three years for twice the value of the bike. After three years, the bike is yours. Depending on what a surety bond costs to maintain until it is returned would probably be worth it. It seems too easy, so I don't know

You can self certify a bike worth less than 2500.00 if you cannot find the owner, but it looks like a lot of hoops to jump through and lying under oath

Reference link.http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-12 ... -F,00.html
Question number 18 would apply
What a ridiculous procedure. I was considering the same thing a few years ago but I decided against it not knowing all the details. Glad to see I made the right call.
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#10

Post by NErockhopper »

You should register the bike in Vermont. It’s a no title state. The bikes VT registaration is your proof of ownership. Ohio will then issue a title. It will work.
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Re: Getting vintage bike titled in Michigan from a Buckeye with love??

#11

Post by JSBail »

raiddrten wrote: The doors were not locked, and 'somehow' the thing got out of gear and rolled into the alley and into a posted tow away church parking lot. Darn neighborhood kids, I guess.
Years ago I agreed to replace an engine in someone's Ford Crown Vic, initially it was just the engine that needed to be replaced but when a friend of the owner towed it over here on a tow dolly he didn't pull the driveshaft which is a big no-no on later model Ford automatic transmissions and by the time the car got here on the tow dolly smoke was rolling from underneath coming from the trans so not only did it have a junk engine but it's trans was absolutely smoked both figuratively and literally. The owner wasn't prepared to replace both the engine AND trans so the car sat here for over a year and the owner never responding to my calls to do something with it or get it out of here. The local police wanted nothing to do with it and basically said it was my problem not theirs but told me that being the car was on my property I could pretty much do what I wanted with it. So I contacted a local salvage yard, told them the situation and they hauled it away for me and then the salvage yard itself went through the process of getting legal ownership of the car so they could legally dismantle it and sell it's usable parts. From that point on I stopped working on other peoples cars at my place.
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