How to fill out Louisiana DPSMV 1698

Not the form most people looking for it want. Its own subtitle restricts it: Which Occurred in Connection With a Transaction With a Dealer Licensed by the Louisiana Motor Vehicle Commission. It records a gift that already happened - the car and the endorsed certificate having been handed over - so that a licensed dealership can process it as part of a deal. A gift between two private people, with no dealership anywhere in the picture, is the act of donation instead.

Written against DPSMV 1698 (0518), issued under R.S. 32:705.1, donation of a motor vehicle by manual gift. The revision is printed as the four digits 0518, in brackets after the code and with no separator between month and year - one of the OMV's older conventions and one that is easy to misread as a document number. There is no notary block on this form at all, which is a good part of why it cannot stand in for an act of donation.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank DPSMV 1698 from the public.powerdms.com copy so you get the revision that is current today.

Every line, in the order you meet it

1. 1
   You fill this in

   RE: Year, Make, Model, VIN#

   One row of four boxes near the top of the sheet.

   Watch out: The vehicle already delivered, not one about to be. Everything on this form is written about a gift in the past, and the description has to match the certificate that went with it.

2. 2
   The buyer fills this in

   Print Name as it appears on Donee's driver's license or other valid state credential

   The wide blank in the acknowledgment sentence, with that instruction printed underneath it.

   Watch out: Copy it off the credential itself rather than writing what the donee is called. The instruction is unusually specific and it is there because this name has to match the one going onto the new title.

3. 3
   You fill this in

   Donor Printed Name

   Bottom left, under the donor's signature rule.

   Watch out: The person who gave the vehicle away. The signature rule above carries no fillable box, so it is signed in ink after printing - as is the donee's beside it.

4. 4
   The buyer fills this in

   Donee Printed Name

   Bottom right, under the donee's signature rule.

   Watch out: The same name as the one written into the acknowledgment above, spelled the same way. Two spellings of one person on a single sheet is the kind of thing that turns a short transaction into a long one.

What gets this one rejected

• •Used for a gift with no dealer transaction behind it. The subtitle is a condition, not a description of a typical case.
• •A donee name that does not match their driver's licence or state credential, which is the exact instruction printed under the blank.
• •Filed where the certificate was never endorsed and handed over. The declaration says the gift was accomplished by delivery of the vehicle together with the previously issued certificate of title, duly endorsed - if that did not happen, this document describes something that did not occur.
• •Signed by only one party. There are two signature rules and two printed-name boxes.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •A manual gift is a delivery, not a promise. The statute it cites allows a vehicle to be donated by handing it over with the endorsed certificate. This form does not make the gift; it records one that has already been made, which is why every sentence on it is in the past tense.
• •The act of donation is the general form. For a gift between two private people, use the act of donation instead - which needs two witnesses and a notary, where this sheet has neither.
• •Whose form it is matters for what else is in the file. Because this one lives inside a dealer transaction, the rest of the file is the dealership's: their invoice, their permit number, and their handling of the title. A private donor sending this in on its own is sending in half a transaction.

Every line here was read off DPSMV 1698 (0518) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Louisiana Office 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.

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