Hey guys,

I'm trying to sell my S2000 and I have an interested buyer. He went to his bank today to get approved for a loan, but they stopped him once they realized that my car was titled out of state.

The car is registered in Hawaii, has Hawaii plates, etc. I guess this is because my bank owns the car, and they are based in San Antonio?

Does anyone know what I need to do to be able to sell my car? I would go down to city hall, but it's Friday and they're closed all weekend.

 

I bought my car titled out of state last year and boy was it a task to get everything done.

The easiest way to sell your car is to payoff the loan get the title and take it to the purchasers bank. However, this is not possible for most people. What you as the seller has to do is get all of your title information from your loan institution and take it to the buyers bank. They need all of this information to payoff your loan to get the title to the buyers bank. My bank was very helpful in doing this for me but I am a small credit union member with excellent credit so that's probably why.

When my bank paid the sellers loan off, I as a buyer had the seller fill out a "Bill of Sale" and he immediately gave me the car keys once the bank transferred the funds to the sellers bank. This is up to you if you want to do this. You must make sure that your loan has been paid before you give the keys to the buyer. I was lucky that the seller gave me his keys at the bank. Some buyers wait a few days to confirm their loan has been paid.

I would web search to get more info on out of state title transfers. Depending on the state, it might be harder to do. Oh and my title mistakenly went to the sellers auto dealer instead of to my bank so I didn't get to register my car in Hawaii for almost a month. I had to bug the seller to find out where the title went. Luckily the dealer sent it directly to my bank once the mistake had been realized.

It was a pain to do but for me it was worth it as a buyer cause now I have my S!

Good luck!

 

I did this with very few results, so thank you for your very informative post. If you have any links with information about this specifically in Hawaii I would love to see them.


My bank is USAA, so they're very very helpful when it comes to this sort of thing. I can't pay off the car (I owe $15,000), so what exactly do you mean when you say I need to "get all of your title information from your loan institution and take it to the buyers bank"?

Is this something that can be done over the phone? When I bought the car as a private sale, my bank was very helpful in taking care of the title transfer, etc. And it was mostly a matter of my bank talking to the seller's bank.

Cheers,
-Matt

 

Also, this is the cause of my concern. When I do a "title inquiry" on honolulu.gov it says...

:: Hawaii Motor Vehicle Inquiry ::


Important Information

VEHICLE NOT TRANSFERABLE - NO HAWAII TITLE ISSUED. Contact the CITY AND COUNTY OF HONOLULU MOTOR VEHICLE OFFICE.

What exactly does it mean "Vehicle not transferrable"?

 

not sure but i did this once as well. seems like branden and i did it the same way.

1. have the buyer's bank contact your bank who has the title (funds were wired)
2. have buyer's bank pay off the loan to obtain the title and write a "bill of sale" (don't forget pay you the loan difference)
3. buyer's bank should take care of obtaining the title/registration

gl!

 

Thanks, guys! Going to the buyer's bank with him on Monday. Seems like the banks should be able to sort it all out!


It feels both good and bad to be without an S.

 

hope it works out.
i would give your bank a call in the AM to give them heads up. gl!

you'll be back in a s someday. maybe you can get one in the UK