I may have screwed the pooch. I bought a 1978 CJ-7 that was in pieces about five years ago. We've spent the last five years doing a frame-off restoration. (I plan on posting a full Rule 1 thread - from start to finish)

I never got around to changing the title over. I went to get the title changed over today. I can't find the bill of sale and the County will not take my word on the $2,000 that I paid for it. The previous seller is unreachable.

It seems like my only option is an appraisal, but that will be at the new condition, as opposed to the condition I bought it in. Any thoughts on how to unscrew this pooch?

Even if you had a bill of sale, you'd be paying the book value for it. Too many people were claiming what you're claiming to avoid taxes. It does hurt the legit people like you.

By book value, I assume KBB. That would be fine, but they want an actual appraisal.

Pay your appraiser to low-ball your appraisal.

I had a poster on here do an appraisal for me.

Also it's not hard to create a bill of sale… the state wants to tax something that's already been taxed I see no issue in doing whatever you can to get out of it.

What county?

Collin

Why not just work up another bill of sale, have a coworker or friend sign the part that they are selling the car.

Take the bill of sale back to the DMV and pay whatever taxes are owed.

Not like the county is going to investigate who really sold the car to you.

Jack Boyett said:

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"Find" the bill of sale.

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Apple Photos makes it really easy to lift a signature off of a signed title. Gemini or ChatGPT can make it have a transparent background so you can drop it on a bill of sale. That said, they may still ask for an appraisal. The state has become insane cracking down on registration anomalies that wouldn't have been an issue in past years.

If you want to do it the legit way, any used car dealer in Texas with a P number can give you an "appraisal". There are probably some on here that can help.

AW 1880 said:

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I may have screwed the pooch. I bought a 1978 CJ-7 that was in pieces about five years ago. We've spent the last five years doing a frame-off restoration. (I plan on posting a full Rule 1 thread - from start to finish)

I never got around to changing the title over. I went to get the title changed over today. I can't find the bill of sale and the County will not take my word on the $2,000 that I paid for it. The previous seller is unreachable.

It seems like my only option is an appraisal, but that will be at the new condition, as opposed to the condition I bought it in. Any thoughts on how to unscrew this pooch?

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If you've documented the restoration you should have pictures of how it looked when you started.

See if you can find an appraiser that will do it based on your before pictures.

Why is everyone talking about appraisals?

I do not think appraisal is necessary based on what we went through when we registered our '77.

1.) Why give a taxing authority an excuse to charge you more?

2.) The tax office charges the greater of the two taxes between Standard Presumptive Value OR purchase price from the bill of sale. The SPV can be gotten by yourself from the DMV website.....your 1978 vehicle will be 'invalid' when you punch in the vin because.....a 1978 vehicle is exempt from SPV.

As such, they are only going to be able to go off of a bill of sale, which, as answered multiple times, you should generate yourself, have a friend sign, and assign the purchase price based on what you want to pay the man in taxes.

If this is wrong, please correct it, but it is what we were told at the DMV by the DMV and why we presented a $300 bill of sale which was happily accepted before I was charged $18.75.