The document that actually moves an Alabama title into the buyer's name, and the one nobody can download. It is produced at the counter by a designated agent from the Department's own title system, carrying an application number that system generates, and signed there. A seller never fills one in - but it is worth knowing what is on it, because every line of it is checked against the assignment you wrote and a disagreement between the two is what sends the buyer back to your door.
Written against MVT 5-1E (not published online), issued under Code of Ala. 1975, Sections 32-8-35 and 32-8-39. There is no version of this you can fill in at home and hand over with the keys. If a buyer asks you to sign a blank title application, or produces one that already carries your details, something has gone wrong - the form is generated for a named applicant at the counter and certified there by the agent who inspected the car.
There is no download link for the MVT 5-1E here because there is not one anywhere - the Motor Vehicle Division does not publish it. The card below explains where it does come from.
There is no completed MVT 5-1E on this page because the Alabama Department of Revenue does not publish the form at all. It is not among the twenty-five motor vehicle forms in its forms collection, and rule 810-5-75-.34 describes it only as something the applicant must complete through a designated agent - which is to say, generated by the Department's own title system at a county licensing office, dealership or bank, with a barcoded application number already printed on it. Inventing a layout for a document we have not been given would be worse than saying so, and what the field list below can do instead is give you every answer to have ready before one is put in front of you.
| On the form | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Application number and date | Generated by the Department's title system rather than written in, with the application date and a transaction code beside it. It is what the buyer tracks the title with afterwards - the Department's status page asks for the title application number by name. |
| Current Alabama title number, or the surrendered out-of-state title | Where the car is already titled here, the number of the certificate being surrendered. Where it has come from another state, the state and the number of that certificate instead. |
| Vehicle information | Vehicle identification number, year, make, model, body type, cylinders, colour, purchase date, number of liens, the odometer reading and the reading type - and whether the vehicle is new or used. |
| Owner information | The buyer's current legal name and a physical Alabama address, with a special mailing address only where no lienholder is listed. The block is headed with a warning that a false address is a felony offence. |
| Gross selling price and trade-in allowance | The price the buyer paid, which is where the county's casual sales tax calculation starts, and any trade-in credit. |
| Lienholder information | The buyer's lender, or nothing. Headed with its own warning: felony offense for failure to name lienholder with intent to defraud. |
| Seller information | Your name and physical address, copied from the assignment you signed. This is the only place a seller appears on the application, and you do not sign it. |
| Owner signatures | One line, or two where the title is going into two names joined by and. The block is headed FELONY OFFENSE FOR FALSE STATEMENTS. |
| Designated agent certification | The agent's signature, printed name, account number and date, certifying the vehicle has been physically inspected and that the VIN and descriptive data are correct. |
| Legends | Anything that has to be carried forward onto the new certificate - a rebuilt brand, a flood brand, or a line recording that the vehicle is exempt from odometer disclosure. |
There is no MVT 5-1E to read: the Motor Vehicle Division does not publish it, so nothing on this page describes its contents beyond what the agency itself says about it — that is here — and what is on the Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division pages. This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.
Back to all Alabama seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Alabama involves.