The signing itself is quick, and it is not the part that goes wrong in Maryland. What goes wrong is everything either side of it - a bill of sale that needed a notary and did not get one, a price written low to be kind that raises the buyer's tax bill instead, and two number plates left screwed to a car that is no longer yours while a penalty runs against your name at seven dollars a day. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration's own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a Maryland titleThe MVA prints a picture of its own certificate, front and back. Here it is, with the nine boxes that belong to a seller marked out on it.Open the walkthrough →Page 73 of the MVA's Interactive Title and Registration Manual lists the odometer exemptions and the first one reads: motor vehicles 10 model years old or older. Page 72 says the same thing a page earlier. That was the rule until 2019 and it is not the rule now, and a Maryland seller who trusts it on a 2016 car has skipped a federal disclosure.
The exemption is federal, at 49 CFR 580.17, and Maryland does not get to set it. It splits on the 2011 model year: anything built in or before 2010 falls out of the disclosure ten years after 1 January of its model year, and anything built in or after 2011 does not fall out for twenty. The regulation prints its own worked example, that in calendar year 2031 a 2011 model becomes exempt. Meanwhile there is no age rule anywhere on the VR-197 to read, so the form will not correct you either.
Model year 2010 or older: Exempt. Every vehicle in this band passed ten years of age before 2021, so the question is already settled for all of them.
Model year 2011 or newer: Not exempt, and a long way from it. A 2014 waits until 2034. Write the reading in whole miles, no tenths, in the printed box on the back of the certificate.
Over 16,000 lb GVWR, or not self-propelled: Exempt whatever the model year, and the same two exemptions appear on both the federal list and the MVA manual's.
You, the seller: Fill in the Assignment of Ownership block at the top of the reverse of the certificate: the buyer's name and address, the odometer reading, the selling price, the date of sale, then sign and print your name on the seller's lines. Take the plates off before the buyer drives away.
The buyer: Signs the same block as buyer, then either completes the Application for Title and Registration printed underneath it or fills in a separate VR-005, and takes the certificate to the MVA with the excise tax, the title fee and a Maryland safety inspection certificate.
The certificate answers the notary question itself, in capitals. Printed on the reverse of every Maryland title, above the buyer's certification block, are the three words NOTARY NOT REQUIRED. The assignment is not sworn and neither is the buyer's application. That is unusual enough that people arrive at a bank with a title and a queue ticket for nothing.
What does need notarising is a different piece of paper for a different reason. The VR-181 bill of sale carries one line under its title - if this form is used to establish the purchase price of your vehicle, a notary is required - and Transportation Article 13-809(a)(2)(iii) is where that comes from: on a car newer than seven model years sold for $500 or more below the book value the MVA reads, the price only counts if a notarised MVA bill of sale proves it. So the notary is about the buyer's tax bill, not about the transfer of ownership.
Across the top of the certificate, under MARYLAND CERTIFICATE OF TITLE, runs the line DO NOT ACCEPT TITLE SHOWING ANY ERASURES, ALTERATIONS OR VOIDS. Along the bottom edge of the reverse the same document says ANY ALTERATION OR ERASURE VOIDS THIS TITLE. There is no tidy-up version of a Maryland certificate: a crossed-out buyer name or a rewritten price ends that piece of paper, and the way out is a duplicate on a VR-018 and a fresh assignment.
Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
A certificate signed on its own reverse, a bill of sale that is notarised only when it has to prove the price, and the mileage written in three places that have to agree.
Maryland stopped posting the paper lien release in 2024, so what a seller has to produce now depends on when the loan was written.
Never arrived, arrived and vanished, or has the wrong name printed on the front of it - three different applications and three different fees.
Signing from a base overseas or a hospital bed, on the one-page authority the MVA accepts and a copy of every owner's licence.
The exemption that lets a surviving spouse move a car without opening an estate, and the two lines the manual tells you to write on the seller's signature block.
Flood cars, total losses you kept the keys to, and the form the insurance company files that has your name on it but is not yours.
They came off with you. Where they go next, in what order, and the refund almost nobody qualifies for.
The MVA states it in three flat sentences on its selling page: license plates stay with the seller, not the vehicle; remove the plates before the buyer takes possession of the vehicle; do not let the buyer use your plates. A Maryland registration belongs to the person, not to the car, and it stays open in your name until the plates physically reach Glen Burnie.
Then get rid of them. A tag return needs no appointment at all - the MVA keeps 24-hour drop boxes at its branches, and a VR-027 goes in the envelope with the plates and the registration card. Posting them is the other option, and the MVA recommends certified mail with return receipt. Hand them over at an information counter during business hours instead and the receipt is printed while you wait.
You may keep the plates in one situation only, and the MVA spells out which: if you are transferring them to another vehicle you own. That transfer costs $15, it works only between class A, M and E vehicles, and where less than twelve months are left on the registration a further year is charged when the new car is titled.
A refund is a separate application and most sellers do not qualify for one. The VR-021 needs at least a full year still to run on the registration, or an unused sticker still in its envelope; a plate with more than a year left gets half back, a plate with less gets nothing, and the cheque comes from the Comptroller's office in Annapolis rather than from the MVA.
Maryland publishes no notice of sale and no release of liability. Search all 123 forms on the MVA's index and there is no equivalent of one, because the mechanism that closes your record is the tag return: when the plates arrive, the MVA closes the licence plate and registration record and the insurance obligation stops with it.
Which puts the whole weight of the transaction on one errand. Transportation Article 17-106(e)(5)(ii) says the monetary penalties provided in this subsection may not be avoided by transferring title to the vehicle - handing the keys over is not the thing that protects you. Getting the plates back inside ten days of the insurance ending is. Do that, with the title transferred, and 17-106(e)(1)(iv) bars the Administration from assessing a penalty at all.
Do not ring the insurer first. Wait for the tag return receipt.
The order is printed on the MVA's own tag return page and repeated on the VR-027: keep your insurance active until you receive your tag return receipt, then cancel. Reverse those two steps and the insurer reports a lapse against a registration that is still open, which is the exact fact pattern 17-106 charges for - $200 covers the first thirty days, $7 is added for every day after the thirtieth, and the meter runs to $3,500 in any twelve months before the case goes to Central Collections with another 17% on top. MDOT MVA, returning your license plates.
Register at an MVA branch office within 30 days of the purchase. There is no sales tax on a vehicle here. Maryland charges a titling excise tax of 6.5% instead, and on a private sale the figure it is charged on turns on the age of the car: seven model years and older, the greater of the price and $640; newer than that, the price if it is within $500 of book value and otherwise book value, unless a notarised VR-181 proves the price. The certificate itself is $200, and moving a plate across from another car the buyer already owns is $15.
What they need to bring:
Maryland's safety inspection is the one that matters at a change of ownership, and it is not annual: the MVA states that Maryland law requires that vehicles pass a Maryland Safety Inspection and receive a certification before a motor vehicle can be sold, titled, or transferred in the State. It is done at a station licensed by the Maryland State Police, about sixteen hundred of them, and the certificate goes to the MVA electronically. Emissions is a separate programme on a two-year cycle that follows the registered owner, so it is the buyer's problem from the day the car changes hands and never yours.
A safety inspection certificate is valid 90 days from the date of inspection, and only 30 once it has been recorded with the MVA and the car is resold. MDOT MVA, safety inspections.
Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in Maryland and the rest of the guides.