View Georgia Dealer Licensing Steps at the Georgia Dealers License Page
We are going to cover the
process of completing a title as a motor vehicle dealer.
When you obtain your Georgia dealers license you are going to
complete titles differently than you ever have before,
because you will be able to do what his known as a
REASSIGNMENT, you will be able to purchase a vehicle from
one person, then reassign the ownership to the next person
on the back of a title, so you will be able to flip a
vehicle for a profit, simply by entering the information as a
reassignment on the back of a title.
You have to have a dealers license to
reassign ownership of vehicle on the back of a title
You will need
to know how to complete a title as a Georgia dealer because
many times it may be just you and a customer that are
completing the title so the customer is going to expect you to know how to complete a
title correctly during a motor vehicle transaction.
There are normally about 3 scenarios when you are completing
a title, you may be buying or selling a vehicle at a dealer
auction, you may be buying or selling a vehicle directly to
another dealer, or you may be buying or selling a vehicle
directly to an individual. If you are purchasing or selling
a vehicle at a dealer auction you will stand in line after
the sale and the title clerk will instruct you how to
complete the title correctly since dealer auctions complete
thousands of titles for dealers every day, or maybe you are
purchasing or selling vehicle to another dealer and they may
be able to guide you, but you want to make sure you know how
to complete the title correctly just in case the other dealer is unsure.
We are going to go BUY a vehicle from an individual and
bring it back to our lot and SELL it to another individual
on our Georgia dealer lot that way you will have compete
oversight over the BUY AND compete oversight over the SELL
when you have your dealers license.
Before you ever
purchase a vehicle from an individual as a licensed dealer
it is EXTREMETLY important to ensure the individual you are
purchasing the vehicle from has the legal selling rights to
the vehicle, and that is going to be the individual whose
name appears on the front of the title. As you can see on
this slide the owner would be Stormie Knight, and this is a
sample title from the Georgia Department of Revenue Motor
Vehicle Division Manual, so before you EVER purchase a
vehicle to resell from an individual, be sure to reach out
to person in advance and ask the VERY important question,
“Is the title in your name” once again ask the person “Is
the title in your name” if they say yes the titles is in
there name. GREAT. They have the legal selling rights to
that vehicle so you can go make the BUY.
However, may
times when you ask the seller if the title is in their name,
they may say something like “No the title is not in my name,
I bought it from my neighbor a couple of weeks ago, he
signed the back of it, and you can just come buy it directly
from me”
This seller is in possession of an “Open
Title, blank or skipped title” which is illegal in all 50
states. The person attempting to sell you the vehicle has
asked the previous seller to just sign the back of the title
and did not complete the purchaser’s information.
Possession of this title is illegal. The person attempting
to sell you this vehicle is basically acting as a
non-licensed person illegally acting as a Georgia dealer.
This person has not completed the legal steps that you are
completing in order to obtain a legal Georgia dealer’s
license. Not only is this transaction illegal in Georgia but
is illegal in every state in the country, but why would a
legally licensed dealer ever support the operations of an
illegal, unlicensed person acting as a dealer. Step away
from this transaction immediately!
When purchasing a vehicle from an individual be sure you
are only purchasing the vehicle from the person whose name
is clearly printed on the front of the title.
When
you have established the person selling the vehicle is the
rightful owner you will need to complete the first “NOTICE
TO BUYER SECTION” as a dealer at the top of the back of the
title. You are basically assigning the ownership of the
vehicle from the person selling the vehicle to your
dealership.
When a Georgia dealer purchases a vehicle
to re-sell or takes vehicle on trade, the GA dealership’s
name and address must be entered as the purchaser on the
back of the title, or on the dealer’s reassignment form in
the “Purchasers Legal Name” line. Remember the PURCHASER is
always the person that is buying the vehicle and the SELLER
is always the person that is selling the vehicle.
Before we get started, when you receive you dealer
license you should always enter your name and your
dealership name
You will enter your name then DBA which
stands for doing business as, then your dealership name.
Later on you may have a salesperson or a general manager
completing titles for you then they would enter their name
DBA then your dealership name. Enter your dealership address
and the county of your dealership and the exact date the
purchase is taking place.
Enter the mileage, I will talk
about mileage reporting exemptions later on in the course,
see these next two boxes to the right of the odometer
disclosure. Lets talk about these 2 boxes. Every once in a
while you might purchase an older vehicle with a mechanical
odometer and it reads 23,000 miles but you are fairly
certain the odometer has rolled over and suspect it reads
123000 or 223000, and the odometer has ROLLED OVER, then you
would check box number 1 which states mileage is in excess
of mechanical limits. Or say for example you are purchasing
a vehicle and the seller tells you that the old odometer, or
cluster stopped working so they replaced the old
Odometer
cluster with a new one and now the mileage has a lower
reading, well this vehicle has an INCORRECT odometer so you
would check box number 2 that states the odometer reading is
not the actual mileage, WARNING ODOMETER DISCREPANCY, this
gives a warning to all future buyers the odometer on this
vehicle is not correct. Be sure to check this box if the
mileage is not correct. The you will have the seller of the
vehicle sign and hand print their name, then you will sign
and hand print their name. And now you have purchased your
first vehicle as a licensed motor vehicle dealer.
Now
we take this title and the vehicle we have just purchased
back to our lot and we FRONT LINE IT, which means we prepare
the vehicle mechanically and appearance wise so it is ready
to sell at the FRONT OF OUR Lot, and there is some other
paperwork we will complete at the time of the sale, which we
will cover in a moment, but right now we are just
concentrating on how to compete a title correctly.
Now
when a person walks onto your lot and wants to purchase this
vehicle, you do not have to obtain a new title, you are
going to be a licensed motor vehicle dealer so you are going
to be able to REASSIGN the ownership of this vehicle to the
customer purchasing it on the lot, lets magnify this process
to see it more clearly.
We are going to complete the
box that states 1st Dealers Reassigment
Lets say a person
named Jack McGregor has come onto your lot and loves this
vehicle and wants to purchase it on your Georgia dealer lot,
GREAT, in this scenario Jack McGregor is buying the vehicle
so he becomes the PURCHASER, so we enter his name, home
address and the county he lives in. Now over to the left you
will enter you dealer number. And I want you to be aware,
ONLY licensed dealers, persons that hold a Georgia dealer
license, can complete any reassisnments, if a person does
not have a dealers license, they must pay taxes and register
the vehicle into their name, so enter you dealer number to
show the state that you are a licensed dealer in the State
of Georgia. Once again you will enter the odometer reading
and check one of the two
odometer boxes if applicable.
Then you will print your name and dealership name,
sign your name and finally the purchaser, buyer of the
vehicles prints and signs their name and you have just sold
your first vehicles. HEY GREAT JOB, pretty easy huh. On a
side note, I am often asked what is the limit of the MARKUP
of the vehicle, is it Blue Book Value, NADA Value, Black
Book Value, no the limit on the markup is whatever price
your customer is willing to pay you for the vehicle, so
there really is no limit on the markup of the vehicle, the
limit on the markup is what your customer is willing to PAY
you for the vehicle that is why I always say this is the
worlds greatest business there is no limit on the markup.
Now do you notice the multiple reassignment spaces on
the back of a Georgia title, which allows multiple
reassignments, or multiple sales of a vehicle from one
dealer to another dealer whether the dealer is in Georgia or
a dealer from another state.
The wholesale market in
Georgia is very strong. On several occasions you may find a
vehicle has been bought and sold between several dealers
before finally being sold to a retail customer.
An
example of this could be one dealer purchases a vehicle from
an individual then takes it directly to sell at a Georgia
dealer auction. Then another dealer realizes the prices at
another GA dealer auction are higher, so they purchase the
vehicle from one dealer auction and take it to another
dealer auction to sell the following week. Another dealer
purchases the vehicle from that dealer auction then sells it
to a dealer across the street from there dealership. Then
that dealer sells it to a dealer in another state,
Where maybe one dealer is purchasing a vehicle from another
dealer and you would complete the title exactly like we did
just a moment ago remember the purchaser is the dealer
buying the vehicle and the seller is the dealer selling the
vehicle
And once again you would complete it exactly
like you did the other reassignments but once you have
completed all the reassignments on the back of the title
You have what is known as a FULL TITLE
You could
very well purchase a vehicle from a Georgia dealer auction
that has a full title, or maybe you purchase the vehicle
directly from another dealer in the State of Georgia and
competed the final reassigement at the bottom of the title.
Well as you see this title is now FULL and you would think
that you would not be able to sell the vehicle again because
the title is full, but I want to show you a great form
called a GEORGIA DEALER REASSIGENMET Form.
You can
take a vehicle that has a full title and RESELL the vehicle
again with this great form you see here called the Georgia
dealer reassignment form.
I strongly encourage you to
obtain several Georgia dealer reassignment forms once you
obtain your dealers license in GA, so if you, say for
example purchase a vehicle from one individual on your lot
on the last reassignment on the back of the title and you
have a customer that wants to buy it a few moments later,
instead of missing out on the sale, you can just sell a
vehicle that has a FULL title with a dealer reassignment,
form, this is a great form that you need to be sure to have
available.
Delus Johnson-Lead Instructor
Automobile Dealer
Training Association