The family's route around probate for one vehicle: attached to and made a part of the application for assignment of title when the owner dies without a will being probated and no personal representative appointed or widow's allotment made. The kin list every one of themselves, swear there is no estate administration, certify the mileage, name who the vehicle should go to, and every next of kin signs before the notary. It is the state trusting a family's sworn census instead of a court's.
Written against 78-014 (08/21), issued under the next of kin, sworn before a notary, where no will was probated and no representative appointed.
This affidavit moves the vehicle to the person paragraph 5 names - and if the plan is to sell it to a stranger, the clean sequence is affidavit first, title into the heir's name, then an ordinary assignment. A buyer handed a dead owner's certificate and a family affidavit is being asked to underwrite your probate shortcut.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank 78-014 from the dor.ms.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our 78-014 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual 78-014, rendered from the PDF the Mississippi Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Services 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
The actual 78-014 at Rev (08/21), sworn by a widow and two adult children for the family sedan. Every living kin is in the table and every one of them signs the ink rules at the foot - the affidavit's force is exactly that census, and the Department's PDF deliberately leaves those signature lines unfielded. The mileage certification sits in the middle because the assignment this affidavit powers still needs a disclosed odometer like any other Mississippi transfer.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
The decedent, the date, the vehicle
The owner's name and date of death, then the VIN, year, make, model and title number of the vehicle they solely owned.
Watch out: Sole owner is load-bearing: a car jointly titled with a survivor may need nothing but the survivor's signature and the right attachment - check the conjunction on the certificate before swearing anything.
2
You fill this in
The mileage, certified by whoever swears
The reading in whole miles, exceptions only if true.
Watch out: Somebody must read the actual dashboard. An estate car that sat for a year still has a knowable number, and 'unknown' is what the warning statement is for - not a guess.
3
You fill this in
The no-probate paragraph, read as a condition
Confirm the estate genuinely has no probated will and no appointed representative before the family swears paragraph 2.
Watch out: If probate opens later, this affidavit does not outrank it - a family unsure whether a will exists should resolve that question first, cheaply, at the chancery clerk.
4
You fill this in
The census, complete
Spouse or unmarried, the number of children, then every kin with name, address, relation and age.
Watch out: All means all - including the estranged, the overseas and the minor children, for whom the surviving parent may act. The table is the affidavit's spine.
5
You fill this in
The destination name
Who the vehicle should be assigned and registered to, in paragraph 5.
Watch out: One name, agreed before the notary visit. This is the line family arguments surface on, and a strikeover here means starting the sworn page again.
6
You fill this in
Everyone signs, one notary watches
Each next of kin signs a line; the notary completes the jurat with commission expiry and seal.
Watch out: Gather the signatures in one sitting if humanly possible - the form is built for it with five lines, and serial notarisations across three counties are how these affidavits take a summer.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
The decedent and the date
That (name) died on (day) of (month), 20(year), and at the time of his or her death was the sole owner of the following described vehicle.
The vehicle
VIN, year, make, model and title number.
The mileage certification
The standard sworn disclosure - I, (name), state that the odometer now reads (no tenths) miles - with the excess-of-mechanical-limits statement and the not-actual-mileage WARNING - ODOMETER DISCREPANCY statement.
The no-probate statement
Numbered paragraph 2: that no will was probated and no administrator, executor or other personal representative has been appointed to administer on his or her estate - the sentence that makes this affidavit lawful to use at all.
The family census
Paragraph 3's survivors - spouse, was unmarried, number of children - then paragraph 4's table of all of the kin of said deceased: printed name, address, relation and age, five rows deep.
The destination and the signatures
Paragraph 5: that it is the desire of the next of kin that said vehicle be assigned and registered in the name of (name) - then five signature lines for next of kin, the notary's jurat, commission expiry and seal.
What gets this one rejected
•Using it while a probate is open. The affidavit's own precondition is that no will was probated and no personal representative appointed - an estate with letters of administration uses those letters, not this form.
•A kin table that stops at the convenient relatives. Paragraph 4 asks for all of the kin, and the signature lines expect each of them - a sibling left off because they live far away is a defect in a sworn document.
•Minors signing for themselves. The form's parenthetical handles it: if minor or mentally incompetent children are included among next of kin, the surviving parent may act for such children.
•No title number for a car the family cannot find papers for. The vehicle block wants the title number - the replacement-title process can resurrect it for an estate before this affidavit is sworn.
•One signature standing in for five. Every listed next of kin signs their own line before the notary; the desire in paragraph 5 is the family's, not the loudest member's.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•The conjunction on the title decides whether you need this at all. The Department's FAQ walks the three cases for a jointly titled car: names joined by OR, the surviving spouse's signature alone is enough; joined by AND, the survivor needs a court-endorsed probated will; AND/OR, the survivor's signature plus the death certificate. This affidavit is for the car titled to the deceased alone - the FAQ's alternative when no will was probated is a letter of administration or testamentary, or this form.
•Executors pay like everyone else. The FAQ's closing line on deceased-owner titles: executors and administrators may apply for a title using the same process and must pay all fees and taxes - death moves the signature, not the fee schedule. The family-relationship tax exemptions do their work at the counter, for transfers between spouses, parents and children, and grandparents and grandchildren.
