Motorcycle Legal-ese
Legal issues...
I was all set to restore these bikes, but wasn't anywhere near prepared for the bureaucratic non-sense I was about to encounter. I bought these without the titles. I thought I had done my homework, researched what I would need BEFORE I be-bopped down to the local Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DMV). With a bill of sale from the guy I bought the parts from and the frame numbers, I'm ready to get them registered. No, not good enough...
The guy I bought the parts from was not the owner on record for either bike. As a matter of fact, there were two previous owners, neither of which was the guy I bought the parts from. Well, I asked the lady what do I do now? She told me that first I would need to ask the previous owners for the title (if they still had it). So I asked her, who were the previous owners? She told me she couldn't tell me that... Huh?
Here in Florida (and I'm sure just about everywhere else) we have the privacy act, which is supposed to make it difficult for people to get any information about you, like your address, without your permission. Sounds good. But just try to find out who owns the motorcycle you just bought when it isn't the guy you bought it from (now I'm starting to wonder if this was such a good deal).
Okay, what can you tell me then? She gets out the big book of rules, a 4 inch binder over-stuffed with policies and procedures for just such an occurrence, and millions of others for that matter. She leafs back and forth and back and forth and finally finds the procedure to follow. She tells me I must call the main office in Tallahassee, the state capitol, to ask them to forward a letter to the original owners.
But the nice lady said...
Alrighty then. I call the Tallahassee office and talk with a typical bureaucrat. I try to explain the situation to him and what the nice lady at the local DMV has just told me. He tells me they are not a delivery service. Really? Then why did the lady...? Nevermind, that's not going to get me anywhere. Okay, so I tell him I really need his help and ask him what do I need to do and he fumbles through his big book of rules and gives me some form numbers to fill out and send to the Tallahassee office in order to get the information.
I found the form online and went to fill it out. There are like a dozen reasons (exceptions), from which I must select one, as to why I am requesting this information. Most of them are for big business to be able to make your life miserable if you don't pay your bills. None of them looked like they fit my situation, but one of them was something about acting as an agent of, or on the behalf of, the DMV. I figured that would be close enough. After all, I was getting information to help the DMV title and register these vehicles in my name.
So let's see... They can't tell me directly, to my face, but if I fill out a stupid one-page form and send them fifteen dollars per request and check the box telling them I am working on their behalf, they will send me the entire history of both vehicles, including ALL the previous owners' names and addresses? Who am I to question the intelligence of government bureaucracy? At least I had the information I needed, albeit 3 - 4 weeks later.
So I be-bop back to the local DMV and tell a different nice lady I have the owners' names and here is the bill of sale and can I register my bikes now? No, sorry. I don't own them and I didn't get the titles. Huh? She leafs back and forth and back and forth in her big book of rules and finally pulls out a couple of pages detailing the procedures to follow and makes copies of them for me.
What's this? I need power of attorney from the original owner to create a duplicate title? Then I can transfer the title to my name? Then I can register them? Huh? I need to send a letter to each owner, via registered mail, return receipt requested, with a letter explaining the situation and a copy of the power of attorney for him to sign? Wonderful. Great. I'll get right on that.
Okay, it's really starting to get to me now. Two trips to the DMV and I am no closer to owning these bikes. Should I keep working on them or stop until I know something more? I started looking in the phone book to see if the previous owners might still live at their old addresses. Turns out one of them, the previous owner of the 1100, might actually still live at his old address. The 750 I'm not so lucky... or so I thought at the time.
I'm stuck...
Now I'm stuck. I can't seem to find the current address of the previous 750 owner. I keep running up against having to pay for information that used to be free, you know, like directory assistance? So I break down and pay the freakin' ten bucks to get the guy's address. Turns out there are three potential addresses, in Oregon no less! So now I'm thinking this really sucks! I'll have to send three registered letters and hope at least one of them will garner a response.
So Ann and I are sitting out on the patio the next Saturday and I'm really bumming about the prospects of contacting the previous owner of the 750. She asks me if I have the phone number for the previous owner of the 1100. I go get my notebook and she calls, gets an answer, and asks if she can talk with him. He's not there. She explains the situation and his wife begins to open up, telling Ann he's on the road most of the time, but gives us his cell number.
Now Ann's on the phone with him, explaining the situation again. He doesn't have the title anymore, but would be glad to sign a power of attorney when he's back in town. So Ann sets a time and a place to meet him, get's the signature, notarized, and I'm back to the DMV.
I tell yet another nice lady I have the owner's power of attorney and a bill of sale and I'd like to get a duplicate title, transfer it to my name and register the motorcycle please. What's that? You can't because the bill of sale isn't signed by the previous owner? Now why in the Hell didn't she say something about that last two times I was...? Nevermind, that's not going to get me anywhere...
Stuck...again...
I'm stuck again! And here I was hoping third time's a charm. I tell Ann and she's just as baffled as me. Biketoberfest 2005 had come and gone. Ann had me working on some "home improvement" projects that diverted my attention from the 750 project. She found out one of the air tools that came with the compressor I bought would "easily" chisel up the tile in the hallway. I came home from work one day to find the hallway demolished. Of course, this meant the guest bathroom and the entry way needed to be included and that meant a new front entry door.
Next thing I know, Bike Week 2006 is coming up and I'm really starting to think I'll never be able to ride either of these bikes. The 750 engine had been rebuilt since last September (2005). So I resumed my efforts to find the owner of the 750. If I paid another freakin' thirty bucks I could get not only theguy's address, but an entire background check. This time only one address, but there were many potential former addresses. So again I'm thinking this really sucks! I sent a registered letter anyway and waited for a response. And waited. And waited.
Bike Week 2006 came and went. I finally got the letter back with an undeliverable response. Take my word for it, those pay services are nothing but a waste of time and money. Again Ann and I were sitting out on the patio, discussing the situation and the lack of results. I told her I was ready to throw in the towel.
This is it! I'm buying a Harley!
I was ready to buy a Harley and say to Hell with those bikes. If it weren't for the fact I had the 750 all together and ready to ride, except for paint, I would have. The entire idea was to have a daily rider so I could get back into the saddle, so to speak, without really having to worry (much) about damaging a bike that cost a fraction of what a Harley would cost. That wasn't happening. After more than a year of trying, I still had nothing to ride.
Ann reminded me of the offer Tim, my best friend of 20 years, had made around Christmas time when he was back (briefly) from Afghanistan. He offered to sell me his second generation Super Magna for what he paid to have the shaft drive rebuilt before he parked it, $700. It had been sitting in his garage, beach side, for the last two years while he had been overseas. Ann, Nick, Jay and I made a trip over to Satellite Beach that weekend to pick it up.
We spent some time with his wife, Kathy, catching up on things and getting the bike loaded into the bed of the truck. Tim was on the phone, from Iraq by that time, making sure I had all the parts that went with it. Kathy was just happy to have it out of her garage. On the way home, we made a detour to Coconuts on the Beach, our favorite hangout in Cocoa Beach, to have lunch with Kathy and an afternoon in the sun. (March 2006)
Just what I need, another motorcycle...
Now I really had my work cut out for me. All that time just sitting beachside had taken its toll on all the shiney stuff. Ann later told me it was a good thing she knew what miracles I could work with the polishing and buffing when she first saw it. Otherwise she would have had serious doubts about buying it, but hold that thought. I went to the DMV and a little more than another hundred dollars later I had everything in my name and registered. It was mine now!
Now don't tell anyone I said this, but I was thinking I could put that 700 plate on the 750 and ride it until I could get in touch with the previous owner. Then Ann had to remind me I wouldn't be able to insure it if I didn't own it. Good enough for a test run or two, but not good enough for a daily rider. Or the 1100 for that matter. She called back the previous 1100 owner and the number has been disconnected. She called the cell number but it's been disconnected too. Damn!
So, I sent a brief letter with a bill of sale and a stamped-self addressed envelope to the old address and waited for a reply. Thank goodness they left a forwarding address with the post office! He sent back the bill-of-sale, signed, much to our delight! This had better be the last trip to the DMV for this bike! A little over a hundred dollars later, I was the proud owner of a motorcycle frame in need of an engine and many other parts. Okay! So I was a bit more excited about it at the time!
I took everything I had related to the 750 with me too. Or at least I thought I did. I figured while I was there for the fifth time, I would take care of the 750 too. I thought I had lived up to the letter of the law by looking up the owner's address and sending the registered letter and all. The nice lady thought I was trying to trick her into giving me the previous owner's address because I didn't have the one piece of paper the Tallahassee office had sent me with his address, just an envelope with an address on it that didn't match the owner's last recorded address. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!
Turns out I did too much by trying to find his current address and just wasted my time and money. All I needed to do was have the DMV send a registered letter to the last recorded address of the previous owner with my return address on it. If/When it was returned, unopened, as undeliverable, the nice lady could then open the letter at the DMV, observe by the contents it was an attempt to contact the previous owner that failed, and create another title without the owner being involved. At least that's what she tells me now. But because I didn't have that one damned piece of paper with his address on it, she couldn't do it! ARRRGGGHHH!!!!
This is ridiculous! Ann kept saying we should just send a letter to his last known address, he probably still lived with his parents. So I took a chance and sent a registered letter to the previous owner's last recorded address, thinking it would come back undeliverable and my troubles would be over. Wrong. He actually still lived there, with his parents, and responded but didn't sign or notarize ANYTHING! Rather he sent a short, hand scribbled note explaining he didn't have the title anymore and had sold it to someone else and didn't know how else he could help me. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!
So Ann and I are sitting out on the patio...
He could have started by signing and notarizing the damned documents I sent him or called me or done something to contact me before he sent them back blank. So Ann and I are sitting out on the patio and once again discussing our options. We realized if I sent another letter he would just send it back again or plain ignore it, but in any case it wouldn't come back undeliverable. So we sort of decided to just show up at this guy's door one Saturday morning.
That's what finally did the trick! He came to the door and we introduced ourselves and he started telling us again how he no longer owned it and had sold it to someone else and didn't have the title and didn't know how he could help us. So I explained to him, using my best 'hand-waving' techniques, that whether he thought he owned it or not, the DMV said he did. And even though he didn't still have the title, the DMV could create a duplicate title. I was starting to get through to him.
I further explained either he could go down to the DMV and get the duplicate or he could sign the power of attorney in the presence of a notary and we could do it for him. We told him our bank had a notary and if he would just go to the bank with us and sign this stuff for us we wouldn't bother him ever again. He said he had to go to the bank too so that we be okay, he would go get his shoes. At this point Ann, being a nurse, recognized he had a bit of a "mental deficit", probably from some type of medication.
When he came back out, we asked him if we would like to ride with us or drive separately. He said he didn't drive anymore because of the medicine he was on, ever since he was hit by a dump truck in that accident. Well that explained a lot. Needless to say, the papers were signed and notarized. We bought him a twelve-pack of beer for his trouble, dropped him off and were on our way home. Of course, we had to swing by the DMV just to see if they were open. NOT! Oh well, I was just happy I had everything I needed.
I swung by the DMV Monday morning on the way to work and a little more than another hundred dollars later I had everything in my name and registered. It's mine now! I finally owned all three! This was May of 2006. If you're still reading this, I hope you haven't missed the point: GET THE TITLE WHEN YOU BUY!
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