How to fill out Florida HSMV 82137

The route for scrapping a car you own but cannot document. The form's own opening line says it must be used by the owner or seller of a derelict motor vehicle or trailer arranging delivery or sale to a licensed salvage motor vehicle dealer or a registered secondary metals recycler when the title, salvage title or certificate of destruction is not available. It is a one-way door: the title record is cancelled and the vehicle may never be titled again.

Written against HSMV 82137 (07/13), issued under section 319.30, Florida Statutes, cited on the form itself. Read the capitalised line before you sign: the vehicle or trailer may never be titled again and must be dismantled or scrapped. There is no route back from this one, and a car with a lost title but a working engine deserves a duplicate title application instead.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank HSMV 82137 from the flhsmv.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.

Every line, in the order you meet it

1. 1
   You fill this in

   Original or duplicate

   Tick Original for a first derelict certificate. Duplicate is for replacing one already issued, and that section is completed by the salvage dealer or recycler rather than by you.

   Watch out: The heading above the sections says it plainly: sections 1, 2 and 3 should be completed for an original, and section 1 alone by the salvage dealer or recycler for a duplicate. Two very different pieces of paper come out of the same sheet.

2. 2
   You fill this in

   VIN, year, make, body and colour

   The vehicle, along the top row of section 1.

   Watch out: There is no title to copy from - that is the point of this form - so the VIN comes off the car itself. Photograph it before it leaves, because after it goes you cannot check it again.

3. 3
   You fill this in

   Purchase price

   What the recycler is paying you, at the right-hand end of the vehicle row.

   Watch out: The threshold is written into the form and into section 319.30: the derelict motor vehicle must be worth less than $1,000, or less than $5,000 for a derelict trailer, and it must be at least ten model years old counting the model year as year one.

4. 4
   You fill this in

   Your name, licence number and address

   Name of owner-seller, the driver licence or identification card number and the state that issued it, and your address.

   Watch out: A legible copy of that identification must be attached - the form says so in the label under the box. And the certification you are signing includes that there are no undisclosed liens against the vehicle, which is not a box to tick lightly on a car that has sat for years.

5. 5
   You fill this in

   The authority you are giving

   The printed name of the driver, and the transporter business they work for, in the sentence beginning I hereby authorize.

   Watch out: You are authorising a named person to take the vehicle to a licensed salvage dealer or registered secondary metals recycler on your behalf. If you or the recycler are moving it yourselves, section 2 may be left blank - the form says so.

6. 6
   Dealers only

   Section 2, the transporter's half

   Location of pickup, the company or person transporting, the driver's name and Florida licence number, a signature, date, printed name and business title.

   Watch out: It cannot be a towing company acting under section 713.78, a business claiming a lien for labour or services under 713.58, or an entity claiming the vehicle stayed on their premises after a tenancy ended. Those routes have their own paperwork and this form is not it.

7. 7
   Dealers only

   Section 3, the recycler's half

   The name of the business acquiring the vehicle, its licence or registration number and email, a signature, date, printed name and business title.

   Watch out: They are notifying the department within 24 hours of receiving the vehicle, certifying they paid less than $1,000 for it, and agreeing to hold it for three business days - ten calendar days where there is a lien less than three years old - before it is dismantled. The line above the heading is the one to read before you sign anything: the vehicle may never be titled again.

What gets this one rejected

• •A vehicle that is too new. Ten model years is a floor, and the model year counts as year one.
• •A vehicle that is worth too much. The value tests are certified twice - once by you and once by the business taking it.
• •An undisclosed lien. You are certifying there is none, and the buyer's holding period changes if there is one less than three years old.
• •Selling to somebody who is not a licensed salvage motor vehicle dealer or a registered secondary metals recycler. The form does not work for a sale to a private individual.
• •Using it because a title is inconvenient rather than unavailable. This cancels the record permanently, and the line about the vehicle never being titled again is printed in capitals across the head of the form.
• •No legible copy of the identification. The form asks for one to be attached to the licence number, not for the number alone.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •It is a scrapping document, not a sale document. The vehicle must be dismantled or scrapped. If there is any chance the car has value as a car, this is the wrong form and a duplicate title is the right one.
• •The thumb print is not paranoia. It applies whenever the person selling is not the owner of record, which is exactly the situation in which a derelict certificate would otherwise be an easy way to launder a vehicle.
• •The buyer has obligations too. Twenty-four hours to notify, and a holding period before anything is cut up. If a yard offers to skip the paperwork, that is the part they are skipping.

Every line here was read off HSMV 82137 (07/13) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Florida Department of Highway Safety and 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.

Back to all Florida seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Florida involves.