Bought out lease, do i need to transfer title to my name to sell (CA)

[achon125]

Hello everyone,

I have a 2019 Volvo XC60. My buyout was around 31k and carmax online apprasial was 40k. I paid the remaining balance to VCFS and I received the the signed title yesterday.

Question, do i need to transfer this title to my name before selling to carmax, carvana, or the likes? And would I be subject to sales on tax on that?

[mllcb42]

Yes, most dealers require the title in your name. You can try some places like mycarauction and see if they’ll take it with a lessor released title.

CA also has a way to recoup your sales tax paid if you resell immediately, so I’d focus on finding the highest offer.

[jeisensc]

@mllcb42

You can try some places like mycarauction and see if they’ll take it with a lessor released title.

FlipMyWhip says they can accept a LRT, and I believe MCA can also.

[achon125]

How does the tax does the sales tax coup work? I wasn’t able to find anything on that.

Also if so few dealers accept the Lessor released title, how does someone take advantage of the not needing to pay sales tax if bought and sold within 10 days? Is it meant for the few that will accept without transferring title name?

[mllcb42]

Third Party Lease Buyout

I recently went through a third-party lease buyout in California. I often see the question on how this is done so I wrote a quick document of my experience: I think the main one I hear is how to avoid paying sales tax twice when selling to a private party. This can be avoided (in CA) by (a) selling you lease within 10 days of acquiring the title from the lessor (b) applying and being approved for a CDTFA-111 from the CDTFA. Note, if you sell to a dealer, the leasing company transfer the ti…

[achon125]

Great write-up. I ended taking it for MCA. They were only a few hundred lower than the highest offer, but they took the LRT. Really easy process, from inspection to check was about 25 minutes.