DC laws on obtaining a abandoned vehicle/salvage title
 

I'm a Marine in DC there are four vehicles parked in our garage that are not registered anymore covered with dust and just rotting there. I know one of the owners is no longer in dc but the other three I do not know. I'm getting there information later today so I can do research on the other ones. I've searched for the laws for dc but haven't found anything. They've cleaned out these garages before and just towed the cars to a salvage yard and I do not want to see this happen to these four cars. Any help?

If you don't have the titles for the car there is no way to legally sell the cars so they're pretty much useless.

I think the only legal way in this case, since the owners are unknown, is to report the vehicles as abandoned and buy them from the salvage yard...

i would talk to the local PD and inquire though... there may be a loop hole that will allow you to purchase the cars, or take ownership of them.

what cars are they?

I can find out the owners because they had to register the vehicles with the garage so thats no problem. The cars are a 90 240sx turboed (registration expired in april) my guess is the ass blew something and didn't want to fix it. 95 eclipse (hasn't been registered since 2007) 95 mustang GT (registration expired in 2007) 2003 Jetta (temp dealership plates.... dont know why it was never registered exp in 07) How much would purchasing the cars from a salvage yard cost?

in PA I think you go to the police and they allow the owners to claim them for like 30 days then you can buy them for real cheap.

But holy crap, talk about some nice abandoned cars!! Why would people just leave them?

Also check out http://dc.dmv.gov

My friend used to buy abandoned vehicles from a towing company in PA. Salvage title and they had no keys...

There are a few different ways that they may have been abandoned. The Marines who owned them could have been taken to the Brig which is a military prison for doing something stupid. May have changed units and didn't want to drive it all the way out there... I don't know why they're just sitting there. This happens all the time though. They cleaned out the garages last year and towed all the abandoned ones out but I can't figure out who they went through to do it.

After a little searching I came up with this http://weblinks.westlaw.com/toc/defa...nt#DC014798272. It's the Vehicle Code for D.C. Scroll down to section 50, Abandoned Vehicles. I read through it and it seems that the Department of Public Works is responsible for the towing, storage and auction of abandoned vehicles. Here's a link to them. http://www.dpw.dc.gov/dpw/site/defau...dpwNav=|31200|

I'd say you best bet is to contact them directly. I didn't catch whether you owned the property or not. If you do, I believe you can lay claim to these cars. It's in the code somewhere.

Thanks man. I just emailed the Mayor. Found out the guy with the 240 is still stationed here just is injured and can't drive it.... kinda depressing lol.

Yeah. I'd contact him and see if he can renew the registration at least. If it's expired, they can tow it out of there if the come to claim the other cars.