The kinds of California title
The Certificate of Title, which the Vehicle Code calls the certificate of ownership, moves a car from one owner to the next, and the DMV issues it in several forms.
The ordinary title names a registered owner and, if the car is financed, a legal owner, the lienholder; the registration card carries the same names (Vehicle Code 4453(a)). Where the lender is in the DMV's Electronic Lien and Title program there is no paper title: the lienholder holds an electronic record, and when a dealer pays off the lien on a trade-in the DMV prints a title naming the dealer as legal owner and mails it, eight days later on average (Vehicle Industry Registration Procedures Manual 1.050, read 2026-10-22).
A salvage certificate replaces the title when a car becomes a total loss salvage vehicle, one the owner or insurer finds uneconomical to repair and does not repair (544). The insurer, or an owner who keeps the car, forwards the title, the plates and the fee within 10 days of the settlement, and the DMV issues the certificate in the name of the owner or insurer of record (11515; manual 19.075). Whoever sells on it must tell the buyer at or before the sale that the car was declared a total loss, or owe a civil penalty of up to $500 (11515(h)).
A nonrepairable vehicle certificate is a dead end. It issues for a car worth nothing but parts or scrap (431), says "NONREPAIRABLE VEHICLE" across its face (11515.2(g)), bars the vehicle and its frame from ever being titled again (431), and can pass ownership only twice (manual 19.040). A junk vehicle is one a licensed dismantler has reported (11520). A dismantled or salvage vehicle comes back only through 11519, with a bill of sale, a vehicle safety systems certificate from a station the Bureau of Automotive Repair licenses, a smog certificate where due and the CHP inspection the last lesson described, and it comes back branded. That certificate replaced the brake and lamp certificates; the DMV takes no paper one issued on or after September 28, 2024 (manual 19.090).
The brand is a word the DMV prints on the title and registration card to carry a history forward. Vehicle Code 4453(b) requires it for a rebuilt salvage vehicle, a rebuilt dismantled vehicle, a former law enforcement vehicle, a former taxicab, a gray market import, a park trailer and a Lemon Law Buyback. The DMV's list reads Salvaged, which covers revived salvage and revived junk, Original or Prior Taxi, Original or Prior Police, Grey Market (Non-USA), Remanufactured, Park Trailer, Warranty Return for a manufacturer buyback before 1996 and Lemon Law Buyback for one since (manual 1.025 and 2.040). On the current title the brand prints in a red box labeled "VEHICLE HISTORY" near the upper right corner (DMV, Branded Titles, read 2026-10-22). The first branded document costs a $2 prior history fee (9255.1).
A Lemon Law Buyback carries more than a brand. Civil Code 1793.23 makes the manufacturer retitle the car in its own name with the notation, affix a decal to the left front door frame (Vehicle Code 11713.12) and hand each later transferee a written notice of the defects and repairs on the form Civil Code 1793.24 prescribes. A dealer who acquires such a car and knows or should know its history owes the buyer that notice and a signed acknowledgment, and anyone selling a car whose title says Lemon Law Buyback must get the buyer's signature on the statute's disclosure.
Reading the title for the seller and a lien
Line 1 of a California title is the registered owner's release, line 2 the lienholder's. Co-owners joined by "and" or holding as joint tenants each sign line 1, co-owners joined by "or" need one signature, a business signs with its name and an authorized person's countersignature, and a trust signs through its trustee (manual 11.015). The seller in front of you has to be the person on line 1.
A lien on line 2 does not stop a sale, but the release has to reach the DMV. For a car three model years old or older, the lienholder signs line 2 or a Lien Satisfied/Title Holder Release, form REG 166. For a car two model years old or newer, nothing but the lienholder's signature on the title itself releases the lien, and if the title is lost the lienholder of record must request the replacement (manual 11.015 and 11.055). Vehicle Code 5753 puts a clock on the lender: within 15 business days after payment in full and the borrower's signed written instruction, the legal owner must release its interest and deliver the title. A lender that misses the deadline owes the transferee $25 a day up to $2,500, trebled to $7,500 if unpaid 60 days after a written demand (5753(c) to (e)).
Signature requirements, and the secure power of attorney
No title passes until the transferor has endorsed and delivered the certificate and the transferee has sent it to the DMV with the transfer fee and use tax (Vehicle Code 5600(a)). On a transfer of the legal owner's interest, transferor and transferee sign in the spaces provided, the transferee with an address (5750). On a transfer of the registered owner's interest alone, the registered owner and the transferee sign with addresses, and the legal owner signs in the new legal owner space to keep its lien (5751). Dealers sign in the reassignment section on the back, each dealer's name with a countersignature or initials, and when it fills, the reassignments continue on a REG 262 (manual 11.040). An odometer disclosure needs the original handwritten signatures of a seller and a buyer, never a signature by power of attorney (manual 5.025 and 1.125).
That rule is why the secure power of attorney exists. When a lienholder holds the title at the sale, or the title is lost, federal law lets the transferor appoint the transferee attorney-in-fact to disclose the mileage on a secure form, and the transferee copies that mileage onto the title exactly (49 CFR 580.13). California no longer prints its own but accepts another state's when the title was unavailable at the sale (manual 5.065). California's secure form is the REG 262, Vehicle/Vessel Transfer and Reassignment Form. It is required when the title was unavailable at the sale, when the title has no complying odometer section, when a duplicate is applied for and for each transfer in a chain of several, and a photocopy of it is not accepted (manual 5.075, 1.125 and 11.015). A dealer keeps each power of attorney and odometer statement for five years (49 CFR 580.8).
After you acquire a car
The transferee rule is Vehicle Code 5902: a person who receives an endorsed title forwards it to the DMV with the transfer fee within 10 days. The dealer's exception is 5906: a dealer who holds the car for resale and moves it on dealer plates need not apply for a transfer. A dealer satisfies its duty to deliver a title by filing the buyer's transfer under 5906 and 4456, unless the buyer demands the title in writing (5753(b); manual 8.055).
A private seller notifies the DMV within five calendar days on the REG 138 Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability or online (5900; manual 11.125). A dealer selling to you wholesale reports within five calendar days on the Wholesale Report of Sale, REG 396, giving you the buyer's copy (5901; manual 9.000 and 9.010). Your part is the chain: the owner's release on line 1, the lienholder's on line 2 or a REG 166, every prior dealer in the reassignment section, and a bill of sale for any gap. The DMV calls these the basic transfer requirements and returns a dealer's application that lacks the new lienholder's name or the word "None" (manual 11.015).
A dealer has 30 days from the date of sale to submit the transfer and fees without penalty, which covers a car whose registration expired in inventory, but not penalties accrued before you bought it, which keep growing until someone pays (9553(c); manual 11.040). Keep the acquisition papers with the deal for three years (13 CCR 272.00).
A lost title and the duplicate
When a title is stolen, lost, mutilated or illegible, the legal owner, or the owner if there is none, applies at once for a duplicate (Vehicle Code 4459). The form is the REG 227, Application for Replacement or Transfer of Title, and it carries the transfer too: the transferor signs with an address and files it with the duplicate and transfer fees, and a lienholder of record signs before a notary (5752(a)). The DMV applies the notary rule to a car three model years old or older and sends a newer one back to the lienholder of record, who alone may request the title (manual 20.000 and 20.055). The odometer disclosure goes on a REG 262 (manual 5.075). The replacement title fee on the DMV's current list is $28 (Appendix 1F under Vehicle Code 9265, read 2026-10-22).
An out-of-state title
A nonresident vehicle is one last registered in another state or country (manual 12.000). Registering it takes an Application for Title or Registration, REG 343, the original out-of-state title endorsed to you by the owners shown on it or bridged by bills of sale and a lien release, the last out-of-state registration, the odometer disclosure, a smog certificate where due, the plates, the fees and use tax, and a REG 31 verification (manual 12.005 and 12.055). The verification is required for every vehicle last registered out of state (manual 1.165); a licensed verifier may perform it, and only the DMV or the CHP may verify a vehicle with documents from another country (REG 31 reverse; VIN 2024-07). A lien on the out-of-state title clears with the lender's countersigned "paid," a REG 166 or the paid contract (manual 12.055). A salvage or junk brand follows the car, and a vehicle salvaged in another state is inspected by the DMV or the CHP before California registers it (manual 1.060 and 1.025).
Quick titles
The DMV's name for a quick title is a rush title. Vehicle Code 9270 lets the department charge a service fee of up to $15, on top of the ordinary fees, to complete an initial registration, a transfer or a duplicate title within 72 hours of receiving a complete and proper application, and only at its Sacramento headquarters. The DMV's fee list carries the charge as Special Rush Title Processing, $15 (Appendix 1F, read 2026-10-22). An application missing a fee or a signature is not on the clock. The DMV's page for the service and the manual's section on it were gone on 2026-10-22; confirm the address with headquarters before you mail one.
The fees and deadlines come later
The rest of the DMV's registration topic belongs to the lesson on registering the car for the buyer: when registration fees are required, the transfer fees required, the time requirements for transfer, the administrative service fee a late transfer costs under Vehicle Code 4456.1, out-of-state deliveries, one-trip permits and the refund of excess fees.
Sources
- Vehicle Code 4453, the registration card and its brands; 9255.1, the prior history fee, read 2026-10-22.
- Vehicle Code 544, total loss salvage vehicles; 431, nonrepairable vehicles; 11515 and 11515.2, the salvage and nonrepairable certificates; 11519, reregistering a salvage or dismantled vehicle; 11520, the dismantler's notice, read 2026-10-22.
- Civil Code 1793.23 and 1793.24, the Automotive Consumer Notification Act; Vehicle Code 11713.12, the Lemon Law Buyback decal, read 2026-10-22.
- Vehicle Code 5600, 5750, 5751, 5752 and 5753, transfer, endorsement, duplicates and the lienholder's release; 4459, duplicate certificates; 5900, 5901, 5902 and 5906, notices of transfer and the dealer's exemption; 4456, the report of sale; 9553, penalties and the dealer's 30 days; 9265, duplicate fees, read 2026-10-22.
- Vehicle Code 9270, the rush service fee (as amended by Stats. 2004, ch. 430), read 2026-10-22 on a mirror; leginfo and california.public.law did not serve the section.
- 49 CFR 580.13, the power of attorney for odometer disclosure; 49 CFR 580.8, retention, read 2026-10-22.
- 13 CCR 272.00, dealer business records, read 2026-10-22.
- DMV, Vehicle Industry Registration Procedures Manual, sections 1.025, 1.050, 1.060, 1.125, 1.165, 2.040, 5.025, 5.065, 5.075, 8.055, 9.000, 9.010, 11.015, 11.040, 11.055, 11.125, 12.000, 12.005, 12.055, 19.040, 19.075, 19.090, 20.000 and 20.055, and Appendix 1F, read 2026-10-22.
- DMV, Branded Titles page; Vehicle Industry News memo VIN 2024-07; form REG 31 (rev. 10/2018), read 2026-10-22.
- DMV, Lesson Plan Guidelines for Used Vehicle Dealer Education Programs, OL 2000 (rev. 12/2007).