Hi Hackers,
When transferring a lease to CA (assuming from out of state) besides smog and verification costs does the DMV require you to pay for registration as you would when first leasing the vehicle from a dealer. I have looked around and seems like besides the $15 transfer fee there are additional fees. not certain.
If the dealership you got the car from did not pay it as part of your deal (eg you leased/registered in another state and then brought the car in), then yes CA wants their money.
Thanks for the reply.
Actually, I am taking over a lease from TX. I am sure they paid registration there. Will dmv in California still want registration fees.
Yes. Registration is not sales tax (which sometimes states will not charge because you paid it elsewhere). You will have to pay CA registration when you do so (after VIN scan and smog).
Yes, and you’ll get to pay them every year.
Also. If the car has under 7500 miles on it, you need to verify that it is 50 state compliant for emissions and has then sticker under the hood that declares as such.
They just charged me (ca dmv) almost 600 dollars for a lease take over. I am thinking maybe they did something wrong. Does that sound correct for out of state transfer.
What car is it? CA DMV is pretty expensive.
If you brought it in from out of state, welcome to CA. On the bright side, you get to pay that every year.
$45000 bmw 5series. It is just a lease transfer. Something seems off. I thought the whole point of a lease takeover is not to pay so much out of pocket initially.
Seems totally normal for CA to me. Annual registration is generally 1-1.5% of market value. Then add in some transfer fees and all that jazz, and $600 is par for the course.
There is no 45K 5-series. 5-series start with 56K. Normally CA DMV is ~1.1-1.2% of MSRP so it makes sense
Sounds like a great idea. You can then pay full sales tax on a lease.
Welcome to CA. DMV fees are high and 600 is about right.
Just for argument’s sake…
If we take a hypothetical $50k car with a 50% RV on a 3 year lease, in Texas, you’d pay ~6% tax on the whole lease, so $3k.
In much of CA, you’ll pay ~10% tax on the depreciated value/rent charge/etc, so $2500 or so. Add in $1500ish in registration over 3 years, and it doesn’t take much for Texas registration amounts to make it a cheaper place to lease if you look at total lease cost.
Obviously, one could run actual numbers to get a more accurate picture.
Thanks for saying this. 6% tax on whole lease amount isnt that terrible compared to 10% on depreciation amount
It’s still worse, but it’s not THAT much worse, and a huge registration fee is just more taxes spread out annually.
Does TX not have annual registration fees? Every state I’ve lived in has some annual reg fees
Oh, I’m sure they probably do, but most states are a fraction of what CA is.
This is one of the dumbest threads on LHF…
“Reg was paid in TX so why would I need to pay it in CA?”
Couldn’t be bothered to google either an exact or ballpark number for CA reg.
Doesn’t care about state income tax or COL, but the relative pittance of reg is such a hardship that I’ll move a couple thousand miles