Alaska issues no titles for snowmachines or ATVs, so the sale of one is not a title transfer at all - it is a decal, a bill of sale and this one-page notification. The form is unusual in what it asks you to do with it: print it, circle the correct body style, check the information carefully, sign it and give the completed form to the buyer. It is not posted to the Division by you. What it does is put the sale on a piece of paper carrying the decal number, the serial number and your signature, so the machine can be re-registered in the buyer's name.
Written against Form 808 (Rev 10/2009), issued under AS 28.39, the snowmobile registration chapter, whose section 050(b) is quoted on the form itself.
The form carries the Division's own footer - DIVISION OF MOTOR VEHICLES, DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION, STATE OF ALASKA - and the words SNOWMOBILE OR ATV SALE NOTIFICATION under it, which is worth noticing because the sheet doubles as the buyer's proof of the sale. Fill it in as though a stranger will read it in a year's time, because that is exactly what happens when the machine is sold on again.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank Form 808 from the dmv.alaska.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our Form 808 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual Form 808, rendered from the PDF the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, Department of Administration publishes and completed end to end: letterhead, every field, and the blocks at the foot.
Amber — you write it
Grey — not yours to fill
Numbered — explained below
Rendered from the Division's own PDF and completed as the form asks - the machine identified by decal and serial number, the buyer written in by the seller, and the sheet then handed to the buyer rather than posted anywhere. The body-style row is circled in ink on a printed copy, which is why it is not filled in here. Every name, address, decal and serial number is invented.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
Printed name of registered owner
The name the decal is registered in.
Watch out: If the machine was bought second-hand and never re-registered, the name on the record is not yours and this form cannot be signed honestly until that is fixed.
2
You fill this in
The decal number
The number on the registration decal stuck to the machine.
Watch out: Walk out and read it off the machine rather than off the paperwork. The form's own notice makes matching the two your responsibility.
3
You fill this in
The serial number
The manufacturer's serial number, in the box the form labels Serial Number (VIN).
Watch out: This is the identity that survives. Decals get replaced every couple of years; the serial number is what the buyer's registration will be tied to.
4
You fill this in
The date of sale
Day, month and year, in the printed frame at the end of the vehicle block.
Watch out: Write it on the day it happens. There is no ten-day notice for an off-highway machine, so this date is the only record of when it stopped being yours.
5
You fill this in
Sold to
The buyer's name, address, city, state and zip on the three ruled lines.
Watch out: You write these, not the buyer - the certification above them is yours, and it says you sold the machine to the person named.
6
You fill this in
Sign, then hand it over
Your signature on the last ruled line, and then the completed sheet goes to the buyer.
Watch out: Photograph it first. It is the only paper in the transaction and once it leaves with the buyer you have no copy of what you certified.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
Printed Name of Registered Owner
The name the decal is registered in, which is the only ownership record Alaska keeps for an off-highway machine.
Decal Number
The registration decal displayed on the machine. The form's own notice tells the owner to make certain that this registration agrees with the decal number on the snowmobile or ATV.
Serial Number (VIN)
The manufacturer's serial number. On a machine with no title, this is what identifies it - and it is what the buyer's registration will be issued against.
Year and Make
Two boxes. The model and trim are not asked for.
Body Style
Four printed choices - SNOW, 3W, 4W, 6W - and an instruction that is easy to miss: print the form, then circle the correct body style. The choice is circled in ink rather than ticked.
Color and Date of Sale
Colour, then the date in a printed day, month and 20-something frame.
Transfer of Ownership certification
The sentence you are signing: I hereby certify that I am the legal owner of the snowmobile or ATV described above, and that I sold it to the following.
Sold to - name, address, city/state/zip
Three ruled lines for the buyer's details, filled in by you rather than by them.
Signature of Seller
The fourth ruled line, under the buyer's address block. Yours is the only signature the form asks for.
The statutes printed at the foot
Two blocks of AS 28.39. The dealer requirements in section 020(b) and (c), and Termination of Ownership in section 050(b): an owner of a registered snowmobile shall notify the department in writing of the termination of use, destruction, or permanent removal of the snowmobile from the state within 15 days.
The registration notice
That this registration must be carried while operating the machine at all times, that displaying incorrect decal numbers or month and year tabs is illegal, and that failure to display the proper decal could result in a citation or impound.
What gets this one rejected
•Ticking the body style instead of circling it. The form tells you in italics to print it first and then circle - the four codes sit in a row and a tick between two of them is ambiguous.
•Keeping the form. The instruction is to give the completed form to the buyer; a copy in your drawer notifies nobody and re-registers nothing.
•A decal number that does not match the machine. The notice on the form makes the owner responsible for checking that the registration and the decal agree, and a mismatch is a citation risk for whoever is riding it.
•Leaving the serial number off because the decal number is on it. Decals are replaced and reissued; the serial number is the machine's permanent identity and the only one a buyer can register against.
•Using this form for a titled vehicle. It covers snowmachines and ATVs and nothing else - a pickup with a plough on the front is a titled vehicle and needs an assigned certificate.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•No title exists to hand over. The Division states it three separate ways across its website: ATVs and snowmachines do not require titles, off-highway vehicles do not require a title to transfer ownership in Alaska, and Alaska does not issue titles to off-highway vehicles such as 4-wheelers or snowmachines.
•The buyer registers, you notify. This form is the buyer's evidence of where the machine came from. They take it, with the decal number and serial number on it, and register the machine in their own name.
•Fifteen days for a machine taken off the road. The statute the form quotes is about ending a registration rather than selling: destruction, permanent removal from the state or termination of use has to be notified in writing within fifteen days.
•A bill of sale is genuinely the ownership document here. Everything on our Alaska bill of sale page applies with full force to a snowmachine, because there is no certificate behind it. Write down the serial number, both names, the date and get both signatures.
•It is a 2009 form and still the current one. The Division has not revised it since October 2009, which is why it reads like a paper-and-envelope document. The instructions on it are still the ones the Division expects to be followed.
