‘I thought everything was good,’ cries driver suddenly hit with thousands in tickets – months after selling her car | 92I449I | 2024-04-29 12:08:01
'I thought everything was good,' cries driver suddenly hit with thousands in tickets – months after selling her car | 92I449I | 2024-04-29 12:08:01
A DRIVER was shocked to find over $1,000 in tickets in her mailbox months after selling her car.
Stephanie Childers believed she correctly submitted all the legal paperwork after selling her old car, but the vehicle's sale turned into a cyclical legal battle.
State Legislators are warning drivers about an increasingly popular vehicle transaction – they said Childer's story served as an important warning.
It took months for Childer's registration issue to pop up.
"I had no tickets for a long time. I thought everything was good," Childers told Hawaii-based Fox affiliate KHON in April 2023.
"I put in my transfer form, everything was good on my end."
Childers had sold her car to a friend and submitted all the requisite legal paperwork.
But her mailbox was filled with several expired registration fines, expired safety check tickets, and parking fines addressed to her then-sold vehicle.
"I had no idea at first until I started getting default judgments in the mail," she said.
Childers reported receiving 20 violation notices with fines exceeding $1,000.
The driver took the tickets to the DMV, hoping to rid the fines.
However, the department turned her away because they cannot change ticket liability.
"For parking and traffic citations, only a judge can release the owner of liability," Kim Hashiro, the customer service director for the Honolulu DMV told the station.
<!-- End of Brightcove Player --> Childers said she was sent to small claims court over the tickets.
"They told me they don't have an appeal to take your name out of a car's title, only to put one in," Childers said.
In a last-ditch effort, the driver turned to United States Representative Ed Case.
Case contacted the city on Childers' behalf.
According to the city, Hawaii State law doesn't recognize vehicle title transfers without paperwork from both the buyer and seller.
<p class="article__content--intro"> You can avoid being ticketed by following all posted laws and ordinances, but sometimes mistakes are made </p> </div> </div> In Childers' case, the state said it only had requests for title changes from Childer – not from her friend.
Without the buyer's signatures, all tickets incurred in the vehicle were assigned to Childers.
In 2022, the city said it saw 171,000 car ownership transfers.
Car exchanges were up 17% from the year prior.
Childers remained in legal limbo at the end of the television stations reporting – it is unknown how the driver's transfer ended.
"Anything with a crime, a car accident, anything – all of that's going to come back to me, and I don't want the police knocking on my door for something I have nothing to do with," she said at the time.
But DMV reps said there is a way to avoid the fines altogether.
Hashiro suggested both the buyer and seller should go to the DMV together to sign all transfer documents at one time.
More >> https://ift.tt/Ms8xt95 Source: MAG NEWS
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