as anyone did this with a private party sale? I have a buyer lined up I just need to payoff MBFS…would I have to go through all of this as well?
Once you have the title from the finance company, you can take the buyer to DMV and transfer the title to them. There shouldn’t be any taxes or any issues. You just have to make sure you’re paid and that you trust the individual.
Thank you very much; it did help. I sent off the paperwork with the timeline of all “action” fully spelled out, and received the check last week. I don’t remember how long exactly, but it took about 4-6 week. Not bad at all.
Our Volvo XC90 lease is up at the end of May, so we are planning to buy it out and immediately turn it to Shift.com to get positive equity and hopefully get refund on any tax paid to DMV. Based on the offers I’m seeing on Shift.com, TrueCar, Carmax this wouldn’t be worth the effort for us unless we can avoid paying the tax to CA. Particularly if I have to wait for a title from DMV, during which time the value of the car will continue to decline.
I’m a little unclear what the starting point from the 10 day period would be in order to get the tax refunded. If a company like Shift won’t allow me to sell when the title is received from Volvo, but only after I go to DMV and have the clear title sent to me, would the 10 days start from the moment the title is received from DMV? Here’s my understanding of the process:
- Send payoff to Volvo Financial
- Receive “Certificate of Joint Title” from leasing company
- Go to DMV to get free and clear title in my name and pay sales tax
- Receive Certificate of Title from DMV
- Provide Certificate of Title to Shift to sell car
- Apply for refund of taxes paid
So do I have 10 days between steps 4 and 5 to sell the car to not “owe” taxes to CA?
Hi there,
I highly recommend getting a quote from https://mycarauction.com/, as they’re one of the only dealers that will allow you to skip steps 3-6. I just sold them a car today, Chevy Traverse and got the highest offer after shopping around. The best part is the I only did the following steps:
- Send payoff to Chevy Financial
- Receive “Certificate of Joint Title” from leasing company
- Schedule appointment with mycarauction
- Received check same day and they took my “joint” title without any hassle
Super easy and most hassle free selling experience ever…other people on this site have used them also
Cheers!
-Jon
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He has a volvo, it might complicate that, but interesting that mycarauction will take a released title
Out of curiosity, what about coming from Volvo Financial Services further complicates the process? Also, does anybody know which steps the 10 day period refers to re: being able to get any taxes I would pay refunded?
Just connected with mycarauction and they confirmed they can accept a released title from Volvo. So totally removes the need to go to DMV to register the vehicle / pay the tax, therefore no need to do the refund application process.
That said, their process apparently has them writing a check to Volvo on my behalf (e.g. check coming from me, not MCA) to payoff the lease which seems a little weird to me. Guessing I can just payoff the loan myself and take the risk that values drop a bit while I’m waiting for the title to show up from Volvo.
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Volvo really doesn’t like others buying their cars, so your statement of
is a bit grey especially if Volvo gets wind of it (And prevents it or jacks up the price). Also the fact that the title is released to you and not them means you have to go back to sign the title over to them even though the title isn’t in your name yet. If it works then it works! I’m just wondering what happens if Volvo includes the tax and you go to claim the money back from the state.
AFAIK MCA and WhipFlip accept lessor released titles. My understanding was you had to buy it first but maybe that changed? If so, lots of positive reports on LightStream. Right now WF is about $2k better on my 2019 XC60 than MCA.
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Looks like MCA was slightly higher than WhipFlip for me. If MCA doesn’t work out, I’d need to move quickly to register the car so I can hopefully get any tax paid refunded. Does anybody know whether I have 10 days to sell the car from the moment I receive the title from the leasing company or is it 10 days from when I get the clear title from DMV after registering / paying tax?
People here are following this result above. DMV doesn’t even know about the car transfer at this point (unless they collect tax early)
Thanks! So basically if things don’t work with one of the companies accepting a lessor released title, I can just mosey on down to DMV and sell the car within 10 days of receiving the clear title and get the tax refunded. Seems like a good backup option.
I am looking at Driveway, MCA, or WhipFlip, but what if the transaction doesn’t get done within 10 days of receiving the title? How would DMV know when I received the title from the lessor?
The timer starts when you get the new title in your name from the DMV. MCA and others bypass that step as you don’t have to do the DMV as they accept a released title.
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So does that mean that there is no 10 day timer if I sell to MCA or other similar buyers who bypass the DMV step?
That is correct, because the 10 day timer hasn’t started therefore you don’t have to worry about it.
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There are a LOT of complaints about US Bank buyout process (and many other banks in general) so I thought I share my recent “success” in the lease buyout process for a 1.5 yr old lease that resulted in almost a $3k savings on Sales Tax and overall almost $10k ‘profit’ on the sale.
US Bank leases are rejected by a lot of online dealerships so my only way was to buy it out myself. It was not without problems however; they also made it difficult by requiring the buyer to pay sales tax… And later, I found out that they do not pay to the CA DMV - they actually printed a check out for the CA DMV and sent it to me with a title… What a shameless way to hold onto $3k of my money for 1+ months. So here’s the steps I took, including the forms.
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Request a lease buyout. They will send you a letter with the amount + sales tax, and an address to mail the money to. Send a cashiers check overnight and SCAN a copy of all the docs for your records
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4 weeks later I received from US Bank a signed title + a check written out to the DMV. Immediately, without delay, bring this over to AAA to re-register and apply for a title. Important! Request the RUSH processing, and SCAN all docs as usual (for paper trail)
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While waiting for the new title to arrive, I went to various online dealerships to get offers. Carvana gave me a 30-day offer so it was very convenient. When the new title arrives, immediately bring the vehicle/title to the dealership **SCAN/Take photo of the title beforehand, and SCAN the bill of sale, etc.
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Download and fill out CDTFA-101-DMV from the California Dept of Tax. Mail this to them with supporting documentation (the scans). Wait for their reply. In my case, they asked me for a copy of the title which fortunately I had scanned.
I mailed the form in on Feb 24th and received notice of refund almost exactly two months later. See below for various docs from US Bank, the rediculous check they gave me (to turn into DMV), and the “victory” letter notifying me of the refund from the CA Dept of Tax.
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When you sell your car to anyone, you don’t pay sales tax. The buyer pays sales tax when he goes to register his car with DMV. DMV collects the sales tax from the buyer.
If the buyer is a car dealer, he is exempt from paying sales tax as he is going to sale the car and not keep it for his own use.
Thanks
Hamid
He’s talking about when you buy out your lease. You pay sales tax. But it gets more complicated about his issue. Hence he deleted it.