Inoperable vehicle storage

A1cntrler

Registered User
I have a question about keeping my inoperable vehicles. I figured a few of you have a couple of parts cars in the backyard and wanted to get your take on this.

We just moved from Chesapeake to CA. My 2 Annies are presently at my moms house in Spotsylvania, neither of them are tagged at the DMV. The City of Chesapeake has sent me the 2010 Tax bill for them, but of course they have a 0 balance after the 100% Car Tax Credit on them. Chesapeake however still wants the city license fee of $23 each. I have tried to tell them I do not live in Chesapeake anymore, and have moved my other two vehicles with me here to CA, just have not had the Annie shipped over yet. It may be a year or so until I can save enough to have them shipped over, but they are fine in storage at my moms house for now. They told me I need to register them in another location and send them proof of registration. I do not need them registered, as I do not drive them and they are inoperable. I hold the title to both of them. Should I just keep paying Chesapeake their money for these vehicles, or do I just not pay it? The mail will stop being forwarded after a year, so I won't get the city fee bill next year. What is the worst that can happen? In CA I can file a PNO (Planned non operational) for them and not have the do anything since they aren't on the road.. I can't find anything like that on the VA DMV website. I see plenty of vehicles sitting in backyards and up on blocks all over the place, and I am pretty sure no one pays license fees for them. How do I stop this?
 
I have a question about keeping my inoperable vehicles. I figured a few of you have a couple of parts cars in the backyard and wanted to get your take on this.

We just moved from Chesapeake to CA. My 2 Annies are presently at my moms house in Spotsylvania, neither of them are tagged at the DMV. The City of Chesapeake has sent me the 2010 Tax bill for them, but of course they have a 0 balance after the 100% Car Tax Credit on them. Chesapeake however still wants the city license fee of $23 each. I have tried to tell them I do not live in Chesapeake anymore, and have moved my other two vehicles with me here to CA, just have not had the Annie shipped over yet. It may be a year or so until I can save enough to have them shipped over, but they are fine in storage at my moms house for now. They told me I need to register them in another location and send them proof of registration. I do not need them registered, as I do not drive them and they are inoperable. I hold the title to both of them. Should I just keep paying Chesapeake their money for these vehicles, or do I just not pay it? The mail will stop being forwarded after a year, so I won't get the city fee bill next year. What is the worst that can happen? In CA I can file a PNO (Planned non operational) for them and not have the do anything since they aren't on the road.. I can't find anything like that on the VA DMV website. I see plenty of vehicles sitting in backyards and up on blocks all over the place, and I am pretty sure no one pays license fees for them. How do I stop this?

You will have to get them titled in CA I would say. Titiled...not registered. And that is complete BS if you ask me. You told them that you dont live here anymore and they told you you owe the money anyway? Basically that is what you are saying? I wouldnt pay it having already moved out there. That is not fair to you. The cars arent even in Chesapeake anymore nor are they registered with DMV. My question is how in the hell does the city of Ches even know about them? I have a inop car that is unregistered and I have never heard a word about it. Since they dont know about it...How do they know about your two project cars? I would try calling the city maybe and tell them they were hauled off for scrap....see where that gets you...
 
They knew about them from when I had them titled. One Annie was from CA, but the guy I bought it from never had it titled from when he bought it before, so I had to back pay the fees from before (But that was on a rust free (HA!)car that I bought from a member on here and had shipped to me) The second Annie, bought to replace the rusty bird I bought from Quick35th and had that one titled too. I guess it was my bad to have them titled in my name since I own them.

CA will not title a car to the best of my knowledge, until you take it to one of their drive through lanes when someone comes out and looks at your VIN, and checks to see the VIN matches the body tags, etc... I'll have to look into it further.

Bottom line is Chesapeake wants proof that the cars are no longer in Chesapeake. If I tell them they were scrapped, won't they want proof of that? Some kind of receipt from the scrapyard?

I'm sure that they are afraid to loose the $60 the state will give them for the car tax relief on both of them. I argued the whole license fee (Takes place of the city stickers) when I got the cars. No way out of that one apparently, even though I repeatedly told them that one of the cars was missing a motor and was inoperable...

I'll look into getting a CA title only for them...
 
THe thing that kills me about that one....you dont buy city stickers for cars that are not registered. It is just another way to suck us dry. It is the reason I am seriously thinking about moving across the state line to NC...Got my personal property tax on my ten year old truck....478.00!!! I have paid almost 6,000 in taxes on just that vehicle alone since I have had it. Dont even get me started on Housing taxes and so on....Other than to sell them to someone else and provide them with a bill of sale....I dont know what to tell you. You cant just not pay it. It will come back to haunt you if you ever do come back here....And yes, you never should have titled them till you had them operational. Thats where you went wrong. But you know that now....
 
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All I did was go onto the DMV website and say I no longer had the vehicle. (Still do and still hold the title tho) then call Chesapeake, they look up the cars and took them off my bill. This was what the guy I spoke to at Chesapeke told me. Said it should be no problem getting the one I am finishing registered here in CA as long as it passes Smog when the time comes, since I still have the title in hand. Guess I'll cross that bridge when it gets here.
 
Annual No Op fee

I thought CA has a non operational fee of about $17 a year for vehicles. IMO CA is the best at extracting money from people of any state I have been in. I have known people to buy old trucks from CA and pay a huge sum of back "fees" before the truck can leave CA.

It took me a year to get them off my back when I moved from CA for not having insurance in CA and then not registering the car I had. Apparently there is NO form for stating "I have moved from CA". I ended up writing a personal letter to Sacramento stating I left CA 18 months ago. Truly amazing since all DOL and DMV information is shared.

Bottom line, I would do whatever I could to never let CA know you have these cars until they are on the road.
-Dave
 
Ya, once they make their way out here, what CA doesn't know won't hurt them. They won't be visible from the street at all, so no problem concealing them. I may just end up going back east, pulling the stuff out of my parts car and putting it into my good car that will be coming across the country. Save a little on transporting it, and then my parts 35th can hang out in the barn at my moms and if I need a part or two can get my brother to pull it and send it my way. Will probably take me a few weeks to get it all done, but if it is all I do for a few weeks when I take my son over to visit my mom in the summer, it is doable.
 
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