Not your form - it is completed by the scrap metal operator - and worth understanding because it is the one legitimate route in Missouri for parting with a vehicle you have no title for. Section 301.227 lets a scrap operator take an inoperable vehicle at least ten years old without a certificate of title, on this bill of sale, and your part of it is one certification and a copy of your identification.
Written against Form 5423 (Rev 09-2025), issued under RSMo 301.227. Read whose signature is whose before you sign anything. Two certifications appear on this form - yours, that you have legal authority to transfer your interest, and the operator's, about the vehicle's condition and its lien status. Yours is short, and it is a statement about ownership made without a title in your hand.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank Form 5423 from the dor.mo.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
This is all 2 pages of the actual Form 5423, rendered from the PDF the Missouri Department of Revenue publishes and completed end to end: letterhead, every field, and the blocks at the foot.
The business information block at the top is the scrap metal operator's, and so is the certification band at the foot.
Watch out: If a yard hands you a blank one to fill in yourself, something is wrong. The operator is certifying facts about the vehicle's condition and its lien status that only they can check.
Year, make, model, vehicle identification number and the date it came from you, with a letter for the kind of vehicle.
Watch out: The year is what decides whether this process is open at all. Ten years is the floor and the instructions say so in one line.
Two boxes with different consequences - resale of parts needs a salvage dealer's licence and a junk certificate.
Watch out: Ask which one they are ticking. Destroyed ends the vehicle's record; retained for parts keeps it alive as a junk certificate in somebody else's name.
Name, street address, city, state and ZIP in the seller's information block.
Watch out: They have to match your identification exactly, because a copy of it goes in with the form and a mismatch gets the whole thing returned.
That you have legal authority to sell or otherwise transfer your interest in the vehicle or its parts, with your printed name and the date.
Watch out: This is the whole of your exposure on the form. Do not sign it for a car that is not yours to give away - a relative's, an estate's, or one you were storing for somebody.
The name, driver licence number and issuing state of whoever brings the vehicle in, or the word same.
Watch out: The form asks for the word same in writing rather than a blank. A blank here reads as an unanswered question and the form comes back.
Not on this form, and easy to forget on a car that is being towed away.
Watch out: The registration expires on transfer whatever the vehicle's condition, and the number stays assigned to you. A plate that leaves on a scrapped car is a plate on somebody else's record.
| On the form | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Business information | The scrap metal operator's name, street address, city, state and ZIP. |
| Vehicle information | Year, make, model, vehicle identification number and the date acquired from the owner, plus a kind-of-vehicle letter from a list of eight. |
| Vehicle is being | Two alternatives. Retained for resale of parts, which needs an active salvage dealer's licence, a dealer number and a junk certificate; or Destroyed. |
| Seller's information | Your name, street address, city, state and ZIP - with the instruction that a copy of your state identification has to come with the form. |
| Seller's certification | I certify that I have legal authority to sell or otherwise transfer my interest in the motor vehicle or parts of the motor vehicle described on this bill of sale - with your signature, printed name and the date. |
| Person delivering the vehicle | Where somebody other than you brings it in: their name, driver licence number and the state that issued it, or the word same. |
| Insurance company block | For an insurer or its agent selling a total loss: the company name, the loss claim number and an NAIC number. |
| Scrap metal operator's certification of facts | Three certifications about how the vehicle was acquired, that it is inoperable, and - for anything under twenty years old - that the online record system shows no lien. |
Every line here was read off Form 5423 (Rev 09-2025) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Missouri Department of Revenue 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 Missouri seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Missouri involves.