A twist on the whole "bike with no title" situation

I have seen a few posts that are similar to my situation, but I need yalls help clarifying things before I put any money in this thing

So....the story goes

A guy wrecked (very minor) his Honda cm450 on the rural road in front of my bosses house. The guy says he is from Houston and staying with some friends nearby. My boss offers to let the guy leave his bike at his house and let him call a ride ( rider seemed like he had been drinking a bit )

The guy says he will call my boss and come pick the bike up the next day...

That was 4 years ago. Now I know it may sound sketchy, but it's the truth....I remember him telling me about this when it happened 4 years ago.

Boss tells me if I come pick it up. It's mine. So I did. Been sitting outside for 4 years but that's another thread ( my upcoming rat bike build three ). It even had a 6 pack cooler strapped to it and a pair of swim trunks in a tail bag.

Finally, my point....what are my options if I ever want this thing on the road. Without any form of paperwork what so ever. Unless someone has an option for me, then I am going to get it running as cheap as possible and just fart around on it out at the ranch. Or use it like a pit bike. It's a rat bike for sure, but if y'all know a way to get it street legal....I might would make it my buddy bike

Fire away.

I think typing that answered my own question. I don't care enough about this bike to put the money in it that it needs to be a safe and reliable bike. I only took it because it was free. I have other bikes to worry about. I think it's just gonna be a ranch bike for checking deer feeders and something to tinker on while having a beer.

However, i would still like to hear what you do if you were wiling to go through the hassle of titling the bike

There's a process for handling an abandoned vehicle. I don't know it exactly but years ago I knew someone who went through this on a vehicle he recovered.

Only possible I can think of is something along the lines of a mechanics lein?? Obviously only a guess. With this situation as you stated it very well could be stolen.

Bonded title for 100.00, once you get the title you can get it inspected, tagged and put it back on the street.

run the tags.

I've ran the tags for $2 at the local title office and was able to chase down the last registered owner, sometimes through the previous owner.

http://www.caferacer.net/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16040

This is an old post, I think this Diesel guy is still performing the 'service'. Something like any bike older than 1985 wasn't titled in Maine. So you can legally purchase one with a bill of sale. You send him a bill of sale, and I think $150, and he insures the bike, registers it in his name, send you a copy of the registration and a new bill of sale. You take said items to the DMV and they issue you a full fledged Texas title.

I used him back in 2011 for a 1977 CB360, took him a few weeks, but he got it done and back to me. I had no issues with the DMV.

Yup, run the tags. You've got about a hundred cop friends on this forum. Somebody can do that for you.

If you don't get any hits, do the bonded title thing. Again, the general steps are:
- Get it inspected. If no existing Texas plate or paperwork, also get it greensheeted at the same time.
- Go to TXDOT where they'll assess it for appraised value.
- Then go to a bonding agent, and pay the $100 for a bond and a stack of paperwork. They'll run the VIN number again to be sure it isn't reported stolen somewhere.
- Then go to the county tax office and pay up. Since you won't have a bill of sale in hand, all bets are off for how they'll tax you. Possibly based on TXDOT's assessed value.

Now your bike is registered and legal. It's a bit of a pain, but 3 years ago I walked a '79 CB650 through the whole process in about 4 hours, once I finally understood it. And if at some point in the future the bike turns up stolen or a mechanic's lien surfaces, the bonding company will be responsible for it.

Or, like you said, save yourself a lot of runaround and just use it for a "ranch bike." But look at it this way - other than parts/labor to get it running right, you can have a CM450 for under $500 including tax. Not a bad deal. If it runs well, you can flip it for a grand.

You can also plug in the VIN on this page and find out if there have ever been any title issues reported to the state of Texas. It won't tell you anything if the bike was registered out of state, but if it was titled here you can at least find out the title status.

Thanks guys....its actually available now for the low low price of....whatever you show up and hand me

gonna try and sell my house, so space is more important than projects now.


for sale thread here http://www.twtex.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1003301#post1003301

BTW, this is what shows up when I do the title check

Title Check
Vehicle Make: HOND
Vehicle Model:
Vehicle Year: 1982
Vehicle Identification Number: JH2PC0536CM004664
Title Issue Date: 2005/09/20
Title Number: 01539238606130301


None
"None" means no information has been reported for this motor vehicle that requires a distinctive remark.
There are commercial Web sites that provide vehicle information for all states. If this vehicle was last titled, or is currently located, in another state, you may consider searching their records as well.

wow, pending already...taking backups....haha, can you tell I have been dealing with realtors!