One page, for one situation: the registered owner is away in the military service of the United States and has given somebody permission to sell the car. It is a certification by the person doing the selling, and it is narrow - the form names military service on its face and nothing else.
Written against MV-456 (11/15), issued under the NYS DMV absentee-owner procedure, certified under New York Penal Law section 210.45.
Read the printed sentence in the middle of this form before you decide it is the one you need. It states the owner's military service as a fact you are certifying, not as one option among several.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank MV-456 from the dmv.ny.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our MV-456 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual MV-456, rendered from the PDF the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles 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 MV-456 at revision 11/15. The signature rule under the printed name is deliberately empty here: it carries no field of its own on the agency's PDF and no box beside it to derive one from, and every value on these samples is placed from the form's own field rectangles rather than measured by hand.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
I certify that I am the ____ of ____
Your relationship to the absent owner, then their name in full.
Watch out: Write the relationship plainly - sister, father, spouse. A vague answer on the first line of a certification is not a good start to a document a clerk is deciding whether to accept.
2
You fill this in
Plate number and expiry
The New York plate the vehicle is registered under, and the date the registration expires.
Watch out: Check the expiry against the registration document rather than from memory. An expired registration is a different conversation, and this form does not renew anything.
3
You fill this in
Vehicle identification or serial number
Year, make, type and the identification number.
Watch out: Copy it from the certificate the owner holds, not from the car. If you cannot find the certificate, that is the problem to solve before this form is worth completing.
4
You fill this in
Transfer to
The purchaser's name and full mailing address.
Watch out: The buyer does not sign this form. They are named on it, which means the accuracy of their address is your responsibility rather than something they will check.
5
You fill this in
Print name in full, then sign
Your name printed, and your signature on the rule beneath it.
Watch out: Print it in full, then sign underneath. The two are not the same box and a form with only one of them completed is half a certification.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
I certify that I am the ____ of ____
Your relationship to the owner, then the owner's name. Two rules on the opening line.
Registered under plate number
The New York plate the vehicle is registered under.
The registration for this vehicle expires on
Month, day and year in three cells.
The military service sentence
Printed, not optional: the owner is in the military service of the United States of America, and has given me permission to sell this vehicle.
Vehicle
Year, make, type and the vehicle identification or serial number.
This certification is made to transfer the vehicle described above to
Purchaser's name, then mailing address, city, state and ZIP.
Print name in full, and sign
Your name printed, and a signature rule beneath it.
The note at the foot
A title for a 1973 or newer model-year vehicle, or a transferable registration for a 1972 or older one, is needed to transfer ownership of this vehicle.
What gets this one rejected
•Using it for an owner who is simply out of the country or in hospital. The certification says military service and there is no box to say otherwise.
•Sending it instead of the ownership document. The note at the foot is explicit - a title or a transferable registration is still needed to transfer ownership.
•Signing it as the buyer. The person certifying is the one disposing of the vehicle on the owner's behalf, and the purchaser is named rather than a signatory.
•Treating the printed warning as decoration. False statements are punishable under section 210.45 of the Penal Law, which is stated in capitals across the foot of the page.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•What it does not replace. It certifies who sold the vehicle and to whom. The assignment on the reverse of the certificate still has to be made, and for an owner who cannot sign that themselves New York's answer is a power of attorney, not this form.
•The power of attorney the DMV will not let you download. New York's Secure Power of Attorney, form MV-93, is a controlled document. It is not published: the forms library carries the order form and the instructions and no MV-93 itself, and dealers buy it from the department in packages of 25.
Every line here was read off MV-456 (11/15) itself —
the PDF is here — and off the New York State Department 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.
