Private Transfers: What's the paperwork holdup from the finance companies?!

Ask the Hackrs
1

I’m on my second private transfer of a lease, this time as the “buyer” and I recall the first one taking forever to complete. On the flip side I’ve bought and sold 20 cars privately over the years and never a hiccup.

GM Financial, after completing all of the financials in a seemingly record 6 business days, has now advised both of us that it could take 30-60 days for them to do the registration paperwork with the state of Florida. They threw this same number around in the initial phone call, but made it sound like that was dependent on us and the speed at which the various application forms etc were completed and processed.

They called me and said “Congratulations, you now have financial responsibility for the car. The next payment is due in 10 days and your account will be set up tomorrow. Of course, we recommend that you don’t drive the car until the registration is completed.”

Since I had time, I thought I might try to do the right thing and get a temp tag from my local tax collector. Reading the FL state guidelines, this actually seemed to fit. After a lot of confusion and discussion, they declared that since this was a dealer sale, not a private sale, it wasn’t their problem, and that clearly the dealer (GM Financial) should be giving me a plate.

I’ll post back on how long it actually takes GM Financial, and I appreciate that lease transfers are technically something they don’t have to do, but what could possibly take so long with processing the same paperwork that their dealer network does hundreds of times a day in 20 minutes?

I am holding out hope that this is a CYA number and it won’t take nearly that long.

2

Can’t speak for FL specifically but the ‘30-60 days’ is most likely just boilerplate language they use for every transfer in every state.

I’m sure GM Financial doesn’t have a crack team of analysts monitoring the moving average of DMV/registration turnaround times in all 50 states, so they just throw out a 30-60 day number that will cover 99% of transfers regardless of the state or circumstances.

3

Part of it is probably that one is a dealer that processes registrations many times a day specific to their state and one is a nationwide bank. They likely just farm it out to a 3rd party company that handles all the registrations.

4

For me, in some cases, registration in NJ has taken over 100 days. Not sure what you think gets done in “20 minutes” by the dealer – DMV and 3rd party runners are slow, has nothing to do with GM. If you search, you will find this is not uncommon. You can look into renting a transporter plate from a wholesaler.

5

If it makes you feel any better, FL generally is pretty fast, but I’m not sure how GM does this, do they send the paperwork to a local DMV office, or did they ask you where you want it sent?

BMWFS sends the paperwork to you, and you take it to the DMV

PFS asks you where you want it sent, DMV, tag office, whatever, and they send it there

Not sure what GMF does

6

That’s interesting. As far as I’m aware, in FL I BELIEVE local dealers can send your info straight to the tag agency - I think that they can print you out a registration on the spot if you are transferring a tag, but I may be misremembering. Similarly, I’ve bought new cars out of state and the out of state dealer has successfully processed enough of FL registration that they didn’t tell me I can’t drive the car home. I’d have to go dig through my old paperwork to see exactly what they did though.

In this case, GMF said for Florida, they needed all my local tax collector office information, however they indicated that they’d be sending “a packet of paperwork with checks” to me to hand deliver to them. I had to make sure six times that they didn’t intend to mail anything to my tax collector’s office directly because that would surely be a disaster.

And in the tax collector (tag agency) process itself for a private sale here, you walk in with your signed forms, write them a check, and walk out with registration and a plate in your hand. It is relatively unusual to see a temporary tag on a vehicle in FL, except for the ones that are obviously fake.

7

Keep in mind this isn’t a sale at all. The vehicle will remain owned by BMWFS. I assumed, based on your original description, that BMWFS was sending paperwork to Florida DMV, then forwarding you the new registration. This is where delays tend to pop-up. If, as you describe in your more recent response, BMWFS is sending you the packet directly, it should move much faster. (as also stated by IAC_Scott)

8

Of course, I’m saying buyer/seller just because that feels more familiar. This is only the 2nd lease transfer I’ve ever been part of - but as soon as they said “30-60 days” I had flashbacks of the last one I did (I was “seller”) mysteriously taking weeks and weeks to complete as well. In fairness, that was also dealing with Ally which was a pain on its own.

GMF has been great to work with so far, but the absurdity of them literally telling me my payment was due in a week but also that they don’t recommend that I drive the car but instead park it somewhere safe for a couple of months was comical.

I’ll update with the final timeline when I get paperwork in hand.

9

If you think about it, what is their incentive to hurry? They are still getting paid and the vehicle theoretically is sitting somewhere not racking up miles!

10

I am in the same boat with GM. Lease transfer completed on June 27th, first payment due on July 2nd, and I still don’t have any paperwork to register the car in IL.

Car is sitting in the garage for the past 3 weeks :frowning:

11

That’s useful info - please update when you actually hear that they’ve mailed you the paperwork. Of course your timing (like mine) was bad around weekends and July 4 - it’s technically only been 10 business days for you since signing, which I agree seems like an eternity for them to complete some paperwork.

12

Just an update (almost a month later) GM Financial is still “working on it.”

In my last call, they said they had requested the paper title from florida and were waiting for it for the last 2 weeks. Having done that myself, my experience is that it usually shows up in my mailbox in 3-4 days.

It has now been 3.5 weeks (18 business days) since GM told me the car was my responsibility but that I shouldn’t drive it until they’ve finished the paperwork.

I am finding it difficult to recommend a lease transfer to anybody other than a close personal friend or family member based on this experience.

13

@gramesmith any update on your transfer?

Called GM Financial again and this guy was even less helpful, he’s just like “right well this is why we tell you it can take so long.”

14

Nope, I still haven’t received any updates. Funny thing, I was about to send you a message to check if you had your documents.

I am tired of calling them, already did 6 times, they are waiting on another department to complete the procsssing, the DMV already did their work.

My Ioniq 5 lease ends in September, hopefully something by end of August else I will ask them to take back the car.

15

Another week gone by, a handful of different conversations.

Last friday, rep said “oh, I see it’s been 30 days… I can send an email to the group handling the registration” which was an interesting way to say that it’s outsourced.

Yesterday, rep confirmed that she could see the previous rep SENT the email but said “well.. sometimes that group doesn’t reply.. sometimes they just process it right away when they get the email.. sometimes they write back… try calling again in a few days”

Friendly reminder, don’t bother with a GM Financial lease transfer unless you have all the time in the world.

16

Final (I hope) update.

Got a notice from FedEx that I have a package arriving from GM Financial.

I assume that means that “the department that processes paperwork” did not in fact email my helpful rep last week back, but that they chose to instead just process my paperwork after sitting on it for 30 days.

Based on the return address, it looks like GM Financial outsources this step to PDP Group. Based on reviews, my experience is common.

Hopefully, this is my last update and i get to register the car today, fingers crossed the paperwork has everything I need. I told the seller I’d take it on June 26, so the process took ~45 days in total. I don’t know how this would possibly work for someone who NEEDED a car.

17

What a farce.

FedEx dropped off my paperwork at 5:30 friday. Inside were 6 pieces of paper.

  • A copy of my own driver’s lic and insurance info which I had sent to them
  • A copy of the esigned lease agreement which I obviously also had
  • A power of attorney to register the car
  • A copy of the title
  • A letter saying GM Financial authorized me to use my existing plate for transfer

Took this to the country tax collector’s office Monday AM - they were THOROUGHLY confused and three times tried to give me a form to get GM to send them the real original title. After 10 minutes and 3 consultations in the back, the girl did a “registration only” transfer which took 5 minutes and cost me $71.

The paperwork that took them 45 days to mail should have taken them 15 minutes to process and mail to me.

Lesson learned, don’t try to transfer a GM Financial lease.

@gramesmith any luck with yours?

18

I haven’t received my license plates yet. After 45 days, I was informed by GM that they had forwarded the documents directly to the DMV. I visited the DMV branch, but they informed me that they cannot complete the vehicle transfer themselves. They have sent the documents to a central location in Springfield, and the process will take 2-3 weeks.

I won’t even know if I owe the Illinois DMV anything or if any documents were missed.

I agree that I won’t deal with the GM transfer again. Paying insurance and monthly lease for 2 months now