Whose form is it? Not yours - and it is on this page for exactly that reason. Search for a Connecticut plate return form and this is what comes back, because that is what the department called it. Read past the title and the subtitle says LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY PLATE RETURN CONTROL SHEET, the header asks for a department or state police troop and the twenty rows want a case reference and a reason such as misuse or stolen. A private seller returning plates does not use this and does not need to.
Written against R-377 (New 6-2010), issued under A Department of Motor Vehicles control sheet for law enforcement agencies returning plates seized or recovered in the course of duty.
The name on this form is the problem, not the form. If you have arrived here looking for how to hand Connecticut plates back after a sale, the page you want is the registration termination - online, or on an E-159 - and this sheet has no part in it.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank R-377 from the portal.ct.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
This is the actual R-377, rendered from the PDF the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles 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
Filled in the way it is actually used - by an agency, with a case reference and a badge number. Everything shaded on this sheet is shaded for the same reason: none of it belongs to a private seller, including the row that is filled in. Every name and number here is invented for the sample.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
Somebody else fills this in
Department/Troop
The law enforcement agency returning the plates. The first box on the form and the first sign that it is not a seller's document.
Watch out: If you cannot fill this box in truthfully, you are on the wrong form. There is no equivalent line for a member of the public.
2
Somebody else fills this in
Street address, city, state and ZIP
The agency's address, over two lines beneath the department name.
Watch out: The address block wants a station, not a home. It is where the initialled copy is filed.
3
Somebody else fills this in
Telephone Number
An agency contact number.
Watch out: Still not yours. Three boxes in and the form has not asked about a vehicle at all.
4
Somebody else fills this in
Row 1: State and Registration Plate Number
The first two of seven columns. Plates recovered in Connecticut are not always Connecticut plates.
Watch out: There is no VIN column anywhere on the sheet. It tracks plates, not vehicles, which is the clearest sign of what it is for.
5
Somebody else fills this in
Row 1: Number of Plates and A/E/I
How many plates, and whether the plate is Active, Expired or Inactive - a key the department prints at the foot of the sheet.
Watch out: A seller's plate after a sale is none of these in any sense the department means here, because the registration behind it has expired by operation of law rather than by time.
6
Somebody else fills this in
Row 1: Reference Number, Reason and Badge Number
A case or call-for-service reference, a reason such as misuse or stolen, and the officer's badge number.
Watch out: The last three columns are the ones that settle it. What a private seller does instead is on the E-159, and the tick there is simply SOLD.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
Department/Troop
The agency returning the plates. A municipal police department or a state police troop number.
Street Address, City, State, ZIP
The agency's address, over two lines.
Telephone Number
A contact for the agency rather than for an individual.
The grid, twenty numbered rows of seven columns
State, Registration Plate Number, Number of Plates, A/E/I, Reference Number, Reason, Badge Number.
State
Plates recovered in Connecticut are not always Connecticut plates, which is why the first column exists.
A/E/I
Explained in the key at the foot of the sheet: Active, Expired or Inactive Plate.
Reference Number
The form's own example: e.g. Case, CFS, etc. A case number or a call-for-service reference.
Reason
Again with the department's own examples: e.g. Misuse, Stolen, etc.
Badge Number
The officer's, in the last column of each row.
Person Turning In Plates, and Person Receiving Plates
Two rows at the foot, each with a printed name, a signature and a date.
The instruction to the officer
Officer/Trooper Please bring a copy of this completed form with you so that the examiner can initial it for your records.
What gets this one rejected
•A private owner filling it in. There is no owner block, no VIN box and nowhere to say why the vehicle changed hands.
•Using it to cancel a registration. It records the physical return of plates to the department; it is not a registration termination and produces no plate disposition receipt.
•Posting it. The form is a control sheet handed over in person so that a DMV examiner can initial it - that is what its own instruction says.
•Expecting a refund from it. The registration refund is an F-82, which this sheet has no relationship to.
•Confusing it with the E-159. The E-159 is the seller's paper route and it is the one with the SOLD tick on it.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•A private seller has three real options, and none of them is this. Terminate the registration online in about seven minutes, post an E-159, or hand the plates in at a DMV office and ask for them to be held.
•The department does not want your plates back. Its cancellation page: plates can be discarded at your discretion. The metal is not the point; the termination record is.
•The one exception is a deceased registrant. There the department does ask for the plates by post, together with an original probate document naming the administrator or executor - and it is still not this form.
•It is kept here because it is a search trap. Rule five of how these pages are built: keep the forms a seller will search for and be misled by, and say plainly whose form it is and what the seller does instead.
Every line here was read off R-377 (New 6-2010) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles pages.
This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ,
theirs governs.
