How to fill out Kentucky TC 96-192

A secured party's sworn account of how a car left its owner without the owner signing anything. It is not a seller's form - the header restricts it to secured parties - but it is the document behind a title you may be handed if you buy at the cheap end of the market, and the document your own lender would file if a loan on your car went badly wrong. One long running sentence carries the whole story: who lent, who borrowed, what the collateral was, what the default was, and who has the car now.

Written against TC 96-192 (05/2020), issued under KRS 186.045(6). If you are buying rather than selling, a repossession affidavit in the file is not a red flag on its own - it is the ordinary way a lender's car reaches the market. What matters is that the vehicle identification number on it matches the certificate, and that the odometer figure on it matches both.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank TC 96-192 from the transportation.ky.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.

Every line, in the order you meet it

1. 1
   Dealers only

   The affiant and the secured party

   The officer's name, their title, the lender's name and its city.

   Watch out: For a seller reading this: the officer named here is a real person at a real institution, and the affidavit is signed in their name rather than the company's.

2. 2
   Dealers only

   The debtor and the date of the security agreement

   The day, month and year the agreement was entered into, and the debtor's name.

   Watch out: This date sits before the repossession, not at it. It is the loan, not the seizure.

3. 3
   Dealers only

   The vehicle

   Make, type, vehicle identification number, year, model, body style and the odometer reading.

   Watch out: The identification number on this affidavit and the one on the certificate have to be the same characters. A mismatch here is the one thing a buyer can check for themselves.

4. 4
   Dealers only

   The covenants violated

   A free line under the printed default recital, for whatever else the security agreement required.

   Watch out: Missed payments are already covered by the printed sentence. This line is for the rest - insurance dropped, the vehicle moved out of state, a lien allowed to attach.

5. 5
   Dealers only

   Disposition

   The purchaser's name and address, or the secured party's own name where the lender kept the car.

   Watch out: If you are buying from a dealer whose stock came this way, the name on this line should be the dealership you are standing in.

6. 6
   Dealers only

   Signature and oath

   The affiant signs, and the person administering the oath signs, dates and gives a commission number and expiration.

   Watch out: An unsworn copy is not a document. If a seller shows you an unsigned repossession affidavit, the transfer has not happened yet.

What gets this one rejected

• •A private seller signing it. The parenthetical under the title restricts it to secured parties, and a person is not one.
• •No file number or county. The affidavit rests on a security interest that was recorded somewhere, and the clerk checks that record.
• •An odometer box left empty. The note beside it says a reading is required on all transfers, and a repossession is a transfer.
• •A default described as non-payment with nothing behind it. The recital covers missed instalments; the free line exists for the covenants that were actually broken.
• •Both disposition routes filled in. Either the vehicle went to a named purchaser or the secured party retained it - not both.
• •An unsworn signature. The jurat is what turns a lender's account of events into something a clerk can act on.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •Notice to the debtor is asserted on the face of it. The printed sentence says notice has been given to the debtor and all other persons entitled thereto. If you are the debtor and no notice arrived, that sentence is the one to point at.
• •It transfers the car without the owner's signature. Which is exactly why it is sworn, and why the statute it is written under is quoted in its own subtitle.

Every line here was read off TC 96-192 (05/2020) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Division of Motor Vehicle Licensing 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 Kentucky seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Kentucky involves.