I bought my motorcycle in July from a guy up near Columbus Ohio. When I bought it we met at his bank and a lady at the bank notarized the transaction by signing the title. She also filled out a couple of the fields on the title such as the mileage on the bike. The problem is neither the guy who sold it or I noticed that she wrote the mileage wrong.
We both told her 9,600 miles.
The space for putting down the mileage has a box for each digit. She started in one box too far to the left so when she got to the end and needed to finish she just put in an extra zero. 96000 miles. That's 96,000 - oops!
In her defense I have the same problem with getting those boxes aligned whenever I deposit a check at the bank. The deposit slip doesn't have a good indication of where each digit aligns and I often start off one box misaligned and have to get a new deposit slip shortly after.
The difficulty here is I didn't notice the problem right away so I can't just get a new title from the guy in Ohio with the right mileage on it. Instead, I have to take a special form back up to the Columbus area, meet the guy at the bank again, go in and have the notary notarize this new form with the correct mileage. Of course, since I bought the bike I don't just have 9,600 miles on it - I have over 10,800.
I doubt I really need to ride the bike back up there; the guy I bought it from would believe me that there are 10,800 and happily sign the form for the notary to validate. But I have to go up there anyway; maybe stop off at Iron Pony and buy a new helmet while I'm there.
Until I get up there and get this new form filled out, signed, and notarized I can't register the bike in WV. Because I can't get it registered I can't get it inspected. Because I can't get either of those two done I can't ride it much longer. The license plate and sticker on it currently expire this month. Let this be a lesson to you - pay close attention when you do a transaction like this - even a single misplaced zero can cause you grief.
Trouble With My Title
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