DMV Mystery
by Scott Hardie on December 14, 2006

My last car, a 1996 Mercury, was registered in my mother's name, so every year in December (the month of her birthday), the registration sticker would be delivered to her at her house and she'd have to pass it to me to put on the license plate. No big deal.

A few months ago, I bought a 2007 Dodge in my name, though she co-signed the credit application since I had no credit history. The old license plate was transferred to the new car, but I was under the impression that the dealer took care of the paperwork with the Florida DMV.

Here's the mystery. A new registration sticker has arrived in December (her month not mine), for my car's license plate, delivered to her name at my apartment. At first I just assumed that the dealer must have registered the new car in her name by mistake, but then I noticed the fine print: The registration is for a 2005 Lincoln, her car that's in her garage as I type this, that she bought two years ago. The Dodge dealer had no idea what car she drove, so this couldn't have been the dealer's mistake.

What kind of mix-up does it take at a DMV to transfer a 2005 Lincoln's registration to a 2007 Dodge's license plate at an entirely different address without anyone asking? The question that troubles me more is, just how much bureaucratic paperwork is it going to take to solve this before my license plate expires on New Years?

One Reply to DMV Mystery

Scott Hardie | December 23, 2006
Some resolution: Upon comparing, my mom and I realized that our license plates are only one number apart. Her car's December registration was mailed to her at my address, which only means she needs to inform the DMV of an address change. It's weird such an error would occur, but at least it's not the much bigger and baffling error that it seemed to be.

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