Not a form you fill in, and not one you can stop. It is the sworn certificate a lender files after repossessing a Delaware vehicle and selling it on, and it is what transfers the debtor's rights, title and interest to the next buyer without the debtor ever signing a certificate. It is on this list because a Delaware owner falling behind on payments goes looking for a repossession form and finds this one.
Written against MV195 (Rev 8/2024), issued under the secured party under the security agreement, which is who deposes on it - this is a lender's document from its first numbered paragraph.
If a lender or a repossession agent puts this form in front of you to sign, stop and read who the signatory is. The undersigned on an MV195 is the party being authorized to depose that a repossession and sale complied with Delaware law - a statement no former owner is in a position to make about their own car being taken.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank MV195 from the dmv.de.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our MV195 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual MV195, rendered from the PDF the Delaware Division 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
The actual MV195, completed the only way it is ever legitimately completed - by a lender, over a former owner's head. The owner's name appears once, in the block headed Title Issued in Name(s) of, and the form then refers to that person as the Debtor for the rest of the page. The execution block at the foot is left empty because it belongs to the secured party and its notary: the name of the secured party, a By line for whoever signs, the title of the person signing, and the notary's own rule. Not one line anywhere on the page is the former owner's.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
The lienholder fills this in
The deposition date
Day, month and year at the top, completing the sentence that turns the page into a sworn statement.
Watch out: This is the date the lender swore to the contents, not the date of the repossession or the sale. All three appear on the form and all three are different.
2
The lienholder fills this in
The Secured Party and the security agreement
Paragraph 1: the lender's name, and the date of the agreement that granted it a security interest.
Watch out: That agreement date is the beginning of the whole chain. A repossession with no security agreement behind it has nothing to certify.
3
The lienholder fills this in
Manufacturer, year and title number
The vehicle block. Delaware wants the title number here as well as the VIN.
Watch out: The title number ties the certificate to a specific Delaware record. It is the number printed on the front of the certificate the lender has been holding.
4
The lienholder fills this in
Vehicle identification (serial) number
The seventeen characters, on their own line under the manufacturer row.
Watch out: This is the identifier a buyer should check against the car itself before accepting a repossession sale.
5
The lienholder fills this in
Title Issued in Name(s) of
The former owner's name and address, over two lines - and the point at which the form starts calling that person the Debtor.
Watch out: This is the one block where a Delaware owner appears on this page. Everything else is between the lender and the next buyer.
6
The lienholder fills this in
The repossession date
Paragraph 2: the day the Secured Party repossessed the vehicle.
Watch out: Worth checking against your own record if you ever see one of these. The dates in paragraphs 2 and 3 are the timeline of what happened to your car.
7
The lienholder fills this in
The sale date and the purchaser
Paragraph 3: the day the Secured Party sold, assigned and transferred to a purchaser for value all of the Debtor's rights, title and interest.
Watch out: A purchaser for value is a term of art - it is what makes the transfer stick against the former owner. There is no seller's signature anywhere on this page.
8
The lienholder fills this in
The conformity certificate
Paragraph 4: the Secured Party certifies that the repossession and sale took place in conformity with relevant Delaware laws.
Watch out: No box, no signature line of its own - just a sentence the lender is signing under. It is the paragraph any dispute about the repossession is really about.
9
The lienholder fills this in
The odometer reading, one digit per box
Six printed cells, filled a character at a time, with the certification printed above them.
Watch out: A repossessed car still needs a federal mileage disclosure. Where the lender cannot vouch for the reading, the not-actual box beside it is the honest answer and it brands the next certificate.
10
The lienholder fills this in
The two exception boxes
Mileage stated is in excess of odometer mechanical limits, and odometer reading is not the actual mileage.
Watch out: If you are looking at a repossession car as a buyer, read these two boxes before you read anything else on the page.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
The deposition line
On this ___ day of ___, 20___, the undersigned, being hereby authorized to make this Certificate, do depose and say. Everything below hangs off that sentence - it is an affidavit, not an application.
Paragraph 1, the Secured Party
The lender's name, and the date of the Security Agreement under which it was granted a security interest against the vehicle.
The Vehicle block
Manufacturer, year, title number, vehicle identification or serial number, and the names the title was issued in - who the form then calls the Debtor, in quotation marks, for the rest of the page.
Paragraph 2, the repossession date
The day the Secured Party repossessed the vehicle.
Paragraph 3, the sale
The day the Secured Party sold, assigned and transferred to a named purchaser for value all of the Debtor's rights, title and interest in and to the Vehicle.
Paragraph 4, the conformity certificate
The Secured Party certifies that the repossession and sale took place in conformity with relevant Delaware laws. One sentence, and it is the whole legal weight of the document.
Paragraph 5, the odometer statement
The Secured Party certifies the odometer reading is the actual mileage unless one of the two boxes is checked - the same two that appear on the certificate itself, reprinted here because federal disclosure follows the car rather than the owner.
The mileage comb
Six separate character boxes for the reading, one digit each.
What gets this one rejected
•An owner filing it. Nothing on the page is a debtor's to complete - the debtor appears only as a name in paragraph 1 and as a set of rights being transferred away in paragraph 3.
•A private buyer accepting one from an individual. The certificate is executed by a secured party under a security agreement. A person is not a secured party because they lent a friend money for a car.
•A blank conformity certificate. Paragraph 4 is where the lender swears the repossession and sale complied with Delaware law, and it is the paragraph a challenge to a repossession attacks.
•A missing title number. The block asks for it alongside the VIN, because the certificate has to attach to a specific Delaware record.
•An odometer statement left unchecked and unwritten. Federal mileage disclosure applies to a repossession sale like any other transfer, and the form reprints the two exception boxes for exactly that reason.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•What you can do while you still can. A car with an outstanding loan can be sold privately in Delaware, and the mechanism is the MV35: request your certificate out of the lender, settle the balance, and the sale proceeds normally. Once this certificate exists, that option has closed - the vehicle has already been sold by somebody else.
•The lien does not vanish because you sold the car. 21 Del. C. s. 2341 requires a seller to disclose every existing lien, who holds it and the true amount outstanding with charges and interest. Selling a financed Delaware car without settling the loan does not move the lien; it moves the problem to a buyer who cannot title the car.
•When a paid-off lien will not clear. 21 Del. C. s. 2339 gives a lienholder thirty days from final payment to sign the certificate accordingly. Under s. 2340 a lender that misses that window is fined, and after sixty days the Secretary of Transportation may - on convincing evidence, kept on file and lodged with the lien registrar - satisfy the lien in the register without the lender. That is the route when a lender has vanished, merged or simply stopped answering.
Every line here was read off MV195 (Rev 8/2024) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Delaware Division 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.
