Moving a Car You Inherited in Another State

A vehicle does not transfer to you because you were named in a will or because you are the next of kin. Until the paperwork says otherwise it belongs to the estate, and that is the thing that has to be resolved first. Everything else waits on it.

• If the title already names a beneficiary, some states let it pass directly on death with a death certificate. Check the title itself before assuming probate is needed.
• If there is a surviving joint owner, how the names were joined on the title decides whether it passes automatically. "Or" and "and" mean different things here.
• If the estate is small, most states have an affidavit route that skips probate entirely.
• If none of those apply, the executor transfers it as part of settling the estate, on the estate's timetable rather than yours.

A policy does not simply continue after the policyholder dies. Cover can lapse, and a car sitting on a driveway during a hard month is exposed to exactly the things that happen to unattended cars.

• Call the insurer early and say what has happened. Ask plainly whether the vehicle is still covered and for how long.
• Ask what cover exists while the car is parked and unused, which is not the same as being driven.
• Sort out cover before the car moves, not on the day. A carrier's cargo insurance covers the car in transit, not what happened to it beforehand.

Inherited cars have often not moved in months. That changes what you are booking, because a vehicle that will not start is a different job with a different price, and finding out at pickup is the expensive way to learn it.

1. 1Find out whether it runs, rolls, brakes and steersThose four are what a carrier actually needs to know. A car that rolls and steers can be winched; one that will not is a specialist job.
2. 2Say so when you bookBooking a running car and presenting one that does not is the most common cause of a driver refusing a pickup and a re-booking fee.
3. 3Check the tires hold airFlat tires on a car that otherwise rolls are a small problem that becomes a large one on a loading ramp.
4. 4Find the keysIt sounds obvious. It is also the single most common thing missing when a car is collected from an estate.

A transport company does not verify ownership, and it is not their job to. What they need is someone who can release the vehicle at one end and receive it at the other, and a clear account of the car's condition.

• Someone has to be present at collection to sign the condition report. If you cannot be there, name someone who can and tell the company in advance.
• The pickup address is often a home that is being cleared or sold. Confirm access will still exist on the day, because dates slip.
• Photograph the car thoroughly before it is collected. With an inherited vehicle you may not know what damage was already there, and the condition report is the only record that matters afterwards.
• If the car is going straight to a buyer rather than to you, say so when booking. Delivering to a third party is ordinary, but it has to be arranged rather than sprung on the driver.

This is worth asking honestly and early, because the arithmetic often points one way while the feeling points the other, and both are legitimate.

Moving a car a long distance costs what it costs regardless of what the car is worth. For a vehicle of modest value, the transport can be a meaningful fraction of what it would sell for locally, and selling where it stands is the simpler course. For a car that is worth keeping, or worth keeping for reasons that have nothing to do with money, the cost is the cost and that is a perfectly good answer.

1. 1Find the title and read itIt may already name a beneficiary or a joint owner, which changes everything that follows.
2. 2Call the DMV in the state that issued itAsk what they need for a deceased owner and whether an affidavit route applies.
3. 3Sort the insuranceBefore the car moves, and ideally before it sits for another week.
4. 4Establish whether it runsRuns, rolls, brakes, steers. Those four answers set the price.
5. 5Decide whether to move it or sell it thereWith the transport quote and the local value side by side.
6. 6Book, and name who will hand it overSomeone has to sign the condition report at the collection end.
7. 7Register it where you liveOnce it arrives, with its own deadline in your state.