I am purchasing my leased vehicle from GM Financial. GM Financial is sending me a bill of sale, but it could take up to 3 weeks to arrive. My understanding is that I would then take the bill of sale to the DMV, pay the taxes due, and get car titled in just my name.
The California DMV vehicle registration renewal on the car is due in 2 weeks. It’s our daily driver, so we need to be able to use it. If I pay the DMV renewal now, will I have to pay additional DMV fees once the vehicle is titled in my name (i.e. once GMF’s entity is removed from the title)?
I’m looking for advice on the best order of operations. Thanks
You will pay it before and AFTER , as there is a retitling fee.
It’s rather small though $50?
New Regs
Retitlement Fee
Sales Tax
You will pay all 3 in total no matter which way you put it.
MAYBE save on Reg fees since the car is now used. If you do the regs later MAYBE, Driving around without valid tags is not worth it.
I used the CA DMV fee calculator and it looks like the vehicle registration would be $120 less post re-titling. This might be due to the residual value being only 50% of the MSRP and the unusual circumstance that this car is only one year old (was a Bolt recall swap)
Yeah I’m planning on waiting to pay the DMV registration fees until the day before the due date, in case I receive the bill of sale from GM Financial by then. If that happens then I can just pay the lower registration fees at the DMV when I go in for the title transfer
