How To Keep Your Personalized License Plate After Selling Your Car

Selling your car to get a newer model as a replacement can be confusing and leave you with many questions; for example, what happens to your license plate? Each states' legislation differs and you must be aware of the local laws, applicable to your place of residence in the US. For example, filing a CNO-REG 102 (certificate of non-operation) may be required in California upon registering some vehicles. So, while the rest of this article explores various options on how to retain your plates, be sure to familiarize yourself with your local laws first.

Remember, alicense platelinks a specific person to a specific car. If you sold your car with your license plates and someone else drives around in it, it can be misidentified as still being yours. When you sell your vehicle, you sign the title over to the buyer, and in most US states, returning your license plates and tags to the local DMV is part of the process. When selling your car, the license plate cannot just go with it.

One of the few exceptions is a private license plate. You are allowed to remove and keep such a license plate when selling a car, but you still have to follow procedures. Again, check with your DMV. You still sign the title over to the new owner, but you must notify your local DMV that you're keeping the plates. This process varies by state. For example, in a number of states, you remove your personalized old license plates from the original car, take them home, and apply to have them assigned to a new vehicle.

There are some things to keep in mind when transferring personalized license plates:

• Transferring to someone else: You can put in an application to have the license plates transferred to a friend or relative.
• Transfer fee: In many cases, transferring the plates to a new vehicle in your name attracts no charge, but transferring to someone else does.
• Keeping the plates: You can just retain the private plate without reassigning it to another car, as long as you continue to pay the annual license plate retention fee.

You might not be able to apply to retain your license plates on the internet, but other services may be available online, depending on your state's DMV. For example, on California's DMV website, you can do the following:

• You can order a personalized or a special-interest license plate
• You can renew both your driver's license and your vehicle's registration
• You can calculate estimated licensing and/or vehicle registration fees
• You can pay to have suspended registrations reinstated

Be sure to check what your local DMV can do for you.

Naturally, the DMV will need to know, since that's who you pay your licensing fees to. However, there are a few other parties that may want to be informed. For example, your insurer will be interested. Normally, all they need is a vehicle's VIN, but you really don't want to give them any excuse to not pay out a claim - such as your car's registration not matching the license plate they have on file.

Another party that may want to know is the car dealershipyou're leasing your car from. Normally, you can't customize the vehicle without incurring additional charges, but putting personalized plates on a leased car is not really considered as such. Still, it never hurts to check with them; the last thing you need when you're returning it is being hit with unexpected additional costs.

Generally, retaining your personalized license plate is permitted in any state, as long as you familiarize yourself with your local DMV's requirement - completing all the paperwork requested is very important to avoid any confusion or problems in the future.