So I bought a motorcycle, a 1992 Honda CBR600F2 from someone in Indiana. I live in KY. When I bought the motorcycle, I made sure the vin numbers matched on the title and the bike frame, they did.

Long story short, the guy that sold me the motorcycle, his name is Chris. The guy that officially owns the bike, according to the title, his name is Michael.

It says "Owner" and then Under that it say Michael Hxxx. Then a little ways down, it says "Previous Owner" and says Christopher Sxxxx. The names are arbitrary but the point is that the guy that sold me the bike is not the actual owner.

On the back of the title, where it needs to be signed to sign it over, it has "Michael Hart" printed and then signed his signature too, as well as his address. BUT it is not notarized. Now I have tried to contact the guy I bought it from but he is not responding back to me. He hasn't responded in a few days and I have tried to contact him several times.

Has anything similar to this happened before to anyone else? Please give me some advice to how I would go about getting this titled in my name. Thanks in advance.

 

As long as it is not stolen and the signature matches the name on the title it Shouldn't be too much a problem. Bring it to the DMV and act like there is nothing fishy at all.

 

i just moved from kentucky to texas about 6 months ago. last year i sold my gixxer because i was moving. i had a crx i had to sell as well. i end up trading a guy for a f4. the guy i sold it to is a dumb ***. he turns around and sells the crx a few weeks later, he never put it in his name before he sold it. well the kid that bought the crx tracked me down.

first question, is the title in the guys name you bought it from? if not you will have to go back to the orginal owner, get it notarized and get him to sign with you. worst case you might have to get the orginal owner to get a new title and then go from there. just makesure you get paper worked signed and notarized saying you bought the bike and that you are waiting for orginal owner to get a new title. so he dont try to screw you. you never know

 

No the title is the another guys name. I didn't catch this when I was buying the bike.

I do have the address to the actual owner, its on the title. The only thing is that its nearly 2 1/2 years old and I'm not sure if he still lives there. I also do not want to drive 4 hours to this house just to see that he doesn't live there.

I can't get a hold of the guy I bought it from to attempt to figure this out so I am at a loss of options.

 

My buddy had something similar to that happen with a car. He bought a car from a guy who signed it but did not get it notarized and the dude didnt return his calls because he ripped the ecu out before selling him the car -.- ... Anyways my buddy found out that a friend's aunt was a notary and she notarized it. If worse comes to worse you can try that route but the person who notarizes it can get in a lot of trouble if they get caught.

 

Yeah my gf's grandma is a notary and Im really trying to avoid that route at all costs. I really don't want her to get in trouble. I'm going to my court house today to see what I can figure out about it. Hopefully something happens.

 

are you 100% sure you hold the current title for the bike?

You should always, always, always, get the title notarized when you buy something with a title. In this case they would have caught that the seller didn't match the title.

In your story - you're saying the bike was sold by chris to Mike, then apparently chris somehow got the bike and the properly transferred title from that transaction back, then sold the bike a second time - to you.

Unless chris never got the paperwork done to put the bike back in his name before selling to you, he's not the legal owner of the bike, like you mentioned. If he did do the transfer, then the DMV would have kept the old title, and sent him a new one. He was likely avoiding having to pay registration and tax on the bike by not getting the title transferred back into his name.

all states are different on registration/titles, but on the back of the title you hold, is there a spot for "witnesses" - Usually requires 2 - to sign the title, basically stating that they acknowledge the title was properly signed. On titles that allow this - it's a way of not having a Notary there to witness the title signing.

If you were to know a couple of "witnesses" that would be willing to sign the title, then you just take it to the DMV and do the paperwork, since the signature on the back of the title matches the name info on the front.

 

I agree with what adrenaln said, he basically bought the bike and didnt want to register it. Ull be alright bro, I still haven put my bike in my name I bought it last year.

 

So I don't exactly know where to go from here. I know the dude I bought it from has nothing to do with me transferring the title to my name. I've looked for the owner, accordinng to the title via facebook as myspace, googles the address to see if I could find a name or phone number. And so far I have come up with nothing.

At my local court house, the person that did the title transferring was out of town but will be back Monday. I'm just not sure what she/he is going to tell me about getting this transferred. If I can't get a hold of the real owner, what am I supposed to do? Or what will they do about it?

 

If you have a chain of custody, like a bill of sale from the original owner to the previous owner, to you, its possible that you might be able to argue your case.