One page that fetches your certificate out of your lender's filing cabinet. In Delaware a financed car's title is held by the lienholder or leasing company, and the seller never sees it - so before you can retain a plate, change a name or hand a certificate to a buyer, the MV35 asks the lender to post the title not to you but to a Delaware DMV office you nominate on the form.
Written against MV35 (11/2019), issued under the Division of Motor Vehicles, as the request it will act on to bring an outstanding certificate in from a lender.
This is the form that decides how long a financed Delaware sale takes, and it is entirely in a third party's hands once you post it. Nothing in the Delaware Code sets a deadline for a lender to answer an MV35 - the thirty-day clock in 21 Del. C. s. 2339 attaches to satisfying a lien after final payment, which is a different event. Send it early.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank MV35 from the dmv.de.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our MV35 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual MV35, 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
Filled in for the commonest reason a Delaware seller ever touches it: a plate that has to come off a financed car before it is sold. The tick against Georgetown is not decoration - it is the address the lender will post your certificate to, and choosing the wrong one adds a county to your journey.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
The lender's name and address
Name on the left, full street address with city, state and zip on the right. Two name lines are provided for a long legal name.
Watch out: Copy it off a statement, not off memory. Banks change names and merge, and the Division matches this against the lienholder recorded on the title.
2
You fill this in
Your email address
One row of its own, labelled Customer's email.
Watch out: This is how you find out the title has landed. The postcard follows, but the email is the fast one.
3
You fill this in
First owner, second owner
Both names exactly as the certificate carries them.
Watch out: If the front of the title joins two names with AND, both belong here and both of you will need to be at the counter afterwards.
4
You fill this in
Complete mailing address
Where the Division's postcard should go.
Watch out: Check it against what the Division already holds. A card sent to an old address is a title sitting in Dover with a sixty-day clock running on it.
5
You fill this in
Vehicle VIN
The seventeen characters, on their own line.
Watch out: This is the field the lender searches. Get it from the registration card or the dashboard, not from an old advert.
6
You fill this in
Vehicle make, model, year
All three on one line, unlike most Delaware forms.
Watch out: Match the way it appears on your registration card. It is a cross-check on the VIN rather than the identifier itself.
7
You fill this in
Customer phone number
A number the Division or the lender can reach you on.
Watch out: Put a mobile here. This transaction has two handovers in it and both are worth a phone call rather than a letter.
8
You fill this in
Choose location
Tick one of the four: Dover, Del City, Wilmington or Georgetown. That is where the lender posts the form and the title.
Watch out: Pick the office you will actually go to. Once the certificate is there it stays there, and moving it between facilities is not a thing the Division does for convenience.
9
You fill this in
Reason for request
Three boxes: Delaware title and registration, change of name, or change of Delaware license plate. Tick the one that describes what you are trying to do.
Watch out: A plate coming off a car you are selling is the third box. If you are also adding or dropping a name, the form warns that takes a signed letter of permission from the lender as well.
10
You fill this in
Sign it and date it, then send it to the lender
One signature, one date, and then it goes to the bank by post or fax - not to the Division.
Watch out: Keep a copy with the date on it. If nothing has happened in three weeks, that copy is what you ring the lender about.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
Lienholder or leasing company information
Two blocks side by side across the top: the lender's name, then its street address including city, state and zip code. Two name lines are printed, for a lender whose legal name runs long.
Customer's email
The Division emails this address the moment your title arrives, and posts a card to your mailing address as well. The form asks for it in its own row for that reason.
First owner and second owner
Both names as the certificate carries them. Two lines, because two names joined by AND both have to appear.
Complete mailing address
Where the postcard goes. Getting it wrong is the failure the retention guidance singles out.
Vehicle VIN, and vehicle make, model, year
Two lines. The VIN is what the lender searches its own records on.
Customer phone number
A single line at the foot of the owner block.
Choose location
Four tick boxes, one per Delaware DMV office, and an instruction above them: the lienholder is to mail this form and the title to the DMV location selected by customer. Dover at 303 Transportation Circle or PO Box 698, Del City at 2101 Mid County Dr, Wilmington at 2230 Hessler Blvd, Georgetown at 23737 Dupont Blvd.
Reason for request
Three tick boxes, and only one of them is a plain sale: Delaware title and registration, change of name due to marriage or court order, or change of Delaware license plate.
Signature and date
One signature line and a date at the foot. No notary.
What gets this one rejected
•Sending it to the Division. The MV35 goes to the lender, by post or fax - the Division only ever sees it arriving in the same envelope as your title.
•Ticking no location. The instruction on the form is that the lienholder mails the form and the title to the office the customer selected, so a blank selection leaves the lender with nowhere to send it.
•Leaving the email blank. The Division notifies you by email at the address on this form when the title arrives, and by postcard after that. Without either, your title sits in Dover and nobody tells you.
•A mailing address that is out of date on the form or on the Division's own record. The retention guidance names this specifically: it is important to have your correct mailing address on the form as well as on file with DMV.
•Using it to add or drop a name without the lender's blessing. The form's own note says any transfers, such as adding or dropping a name, require a signed letter of permission from the lienholder or leasing company.
•Assuming the title can then sit at the DMV indefinitely. DMV will hold your title for no more than 60 days, and if the lienholder asks for it back before then, the Division complies.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•What has to be in the Division's hands. The form spells out three conditions in its own bullets. To obtain a Delaware title and registration for the first time, the Division must have the original out-of-state title. To change a name or a plate number on a Delaware title, the Division must have the original Delaware title. And for a leased vehicle, the Division must have a notarized power of attorney from the lessor to the lessee to sign the title application.
•What comes out the other end. Upon receipt of the above, a new Delaware title listing the lienholder or leasing company will be issued and mailed to them. The lender's interest survives the transaction; what changes is whatever you asked for on the reason line.
•Bring these when the postcard arrives. Your driver licence and proof of insurance - insurance is required if you plan to re-tag the vehicle for the purchaser. That is the retention guidance's list, and it is what the postcard is telling you to collect.
•The sixty days are the clock that matters. Once the lender posts the title, you have a window rather than an open invitation. Start the MV35 before you advertise the car, not after somebody has agreed to buy it.
Every line here was read off MV35 (11/2019) 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.
