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My mother in Arizona has had her 1994 Toyota sitting in her garage for two years. She cannot drive; at this point it is not driveable anyway. I am her financial POA; I cancelled the insurance on it some time ago. Well, she just called me to tell me she had sold the car to a guy she found in an ad in a local shoppers weekly paper. He paid her a small amount of money, loaded up the car on a flatbed tow truck and off he went. She has no last name, just a phone number, and gee, he was "so nice"! She is delighted to have gotten rid of it. Thing is, *I* have the car title in my bulging "Mom" folder, 1000 miles away. She said he said no worries, just sign this form and it would all be legal. I pulled out the title. She apparently *signed* it years ago. But to transfer title, we'd need full contact info for the buyer AND HER signature has to be notarized, which of course we can't do because (1) I have the stupid thing AND (2) she ALREADY signed it. I don't even know where to start untangling this mess. My brother sent me the title and some other important paperwork just so she couldn't lose / misuse such stuff, and now it's come back to bite us. Any advice from Arizonans here??
Please, no lectures about placing her in a supervised setting. We've tried, and are trying, and she absolutely refuses anything we propose. Once we have a proper medical/neuro exam/writeup to document her competence or lack thereof, we'll gear up for THAT nightmare, but of course the appointment is booked out months.
Thank you.

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OP here… I called Arizona DMV. After thirty minutes on hold, I reached a pleasant young man. Who at first didn’t want to speak to me because my mother was not in the room with me (I live 1000 miles away). Then he asked if I could get her on a 3-way call with us… Hahahaha. Mom can barely use her landline phone. So, nope. I explained at length about her age, her dementia, my POA, etc., and told him the story. He finally told me to file an online Sold Notice. It did not matter that I didn’t have contact info for the buyer beyond first name and phone number, to just put in whatever I had, and check the box saying “no additional information available.” So I did that, and voila! As far as AZ DMV is concerned, she no longer owns that car. And those liabilities were the main thing we were concerned about, so we seem to have resolved this crisis. Now we sit back and wait for the next one…oh, look! There it is! The buyer left Mom with a small plastic box with a push button on it…what if he needs it?!! It’s the garage door opener… sigh.
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AlvaDeer Nov 2024
What a GREAT outcome. This is exactly what eventually I had to do for my brother's own wrecked Truck. But it took two trips to SF DMV and anyone who's been there know those were some interesting days in some hard chairs. I had to take in my POA papers and I filed with them a release of liability statement that he no longer possessed the care and wasn't liable for it, and that it had not been "gifted". I do think I could have done that online, as well. It was called a "notice of transfer and release of liability" but I did in my case at least have a name to fill in with who had the car.
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This thing mom has "done" about the car puts me in mind of my own mother in very advanced age who told me she hadn't filed taxes for years and didn't have to. At the time she said this I wasn't aware that, if your income was under a certain amount, you indeed DID NOT have to file taxes.
So there I am visiting and I am saying "MOM!, Are you SURE you don't have to; shouldn't we check? Because I think even if you don't OWE you STILL have to FILE".
She couldn't convince me to she final said to me:
"Let's put it this way, Al. If I am WRONG, and the government comes to get me, and throws me in jail, and provides me a bed, three meals, and all my medical for the durations I will be happy to go with them".

I still giggle about THAT one to this day.
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I have sold cars and just bought one. All we had to do was sign the title there was no notary needed.

I think I would report this to the DMV. That way if someone triesvto get a new Title they can catch it.
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I think ultimately Olddude is correct here.
He paid the price your mother asked for the junker.
That he has no registration is his problem.

No one is going to mess with mom. And if they do she will tell her story. Guy saw the car, and bought it. I signed his paper and got 2,000 for it.
No one is jailing mom OR this guy in all likelihood. I am convinced.

Forget about it. I would.
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It sounds like not having title is going to be the buyers problem....?
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AlvaDeer Nov 2024
It sounds like fraud. I think this should be reported to police because who knows the plans for this car. Drug trafficking? One of those fender bender things where a car is used to pretend read ending accident fraud. So I think it is worthy at least of a report to the DMV and police.
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YUP. That's a mess. And it's fraud. And it's stealing. And it's a whole lot of anxiety. I was there. RIGHT there just a bit differently.

This is for your local DMV and I sure wish you luck. I mean HER local DMV.
If you are POA 1,000 miles away you have my UTTER sympathy because I have my OWN car story, that occurred here in California when my brother was suddenly in an accident and as an incidental diagnosis left the hospital diagnosed with probable early Lewy's Dementia. He quickly made me his POA and Trustee of Trust and a nightmare year ensued. And the CAR story was but ONE that was a TOTAL TOTAL nightmare about which I did way way way way too much worrying and sitting in DMV offices and so on for no good reason. It's a long long story and I won't do it here, tho happy to do it by private message; not really relevant to you. Just to say the amount of anxiety I expended on this for no reason whatsoever was amazing.

So I recommend a call now to AZ DMV and ask just how this might be addressed. I would bet your doing NOTHING whatsoever and just understanding Mom's car was stolen, would do it. Perhaps a call to the cops to ask THEM how to proceed.

I do think this is a warning. How safe are ALL of mom's funds. For my bro I was incharge of all bills, all accounts, all assets. ALL of them and he had a small spending account. He was dreadfully afraid his failing mind would put his assets at risk and he was so right they may have. It was a nightmare year of arranging everything, and today with outsourcing across our country would be ever so much worse.

Don't sweat this. Call to police to report "stolen suspicious circumstances" would do it I would think; would give you at least a filed police report. And to the DMV. This was clearly "fraud" and "stealing". You could deny knowledge of any of it, ha ha.

This is a tip of iceberg I am afraid in how difficult it is to do POA from overseas. I might suggest a Licensed Fiduciary for her; depends on her assets and if it's affordable. Would take a lot off you. I did it from across the state, but that first year did entail flying back and forth, something I couldn't imagine now 5 years on.

Good luck.
DO update us.
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cover9339 Nov 2024
If it was bought just for parts and won't be put back on the road, (more then likely this is the case), then maybe not stealing.
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