How to fill out North Dakota SFN 2878

This one is not yours, and the page exists so you know that before somebody hands it to you. Part 2 is the dealer's re-assignment - the block a licensed dealer uses to pass on a vehicle it took in and did not title in its own name - and it carries a Dealer License Number field that a private seller cannot fill. The Registration Manual is explicit that Part 2 must be completed if the vehicle is sold by a dealer. A private seller assigns on Part 1 and never writes here; a private buyer meeting a completed Part 2 is buying from a dealer, whatever the advertisement said.

Written against SFN 2878 (4-2026), issued under North Dakota Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division; the dealer re-assignment the Registration Manual requires where a vehicle is sold by a dealer. If you are selling privately and someone asks you to leave the certificate's Part 1 blank so that a dealer can 'sort it out on Part 2', stop. Part 2 requires a dealer licence number, and the arrangement being proposed is a certificate assigned by nobody in particular - the thing the department's erasure-and-alteration rules and its purchaser's certification exist to prevent. Assign Part 1 to the person or business actually buying the car, and let their onward sale be their problem.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank SFN 2878 from the dot.nd.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our SFN 2878 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.

Step 1 · the form itself Blank SFN 2878 — Part 2, Dealer Re-Assignment and Warranty of Title PDF at dot.nd.gov · new tab Step 2 · how to fill it in Our filled-in SFN 2878 guide PDF · print and keep beside you

Filled in

What a completed one looks like

This is the actual SFN 2878, rendered from the PDF the North Dakota Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division 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

A completed North Dakota SFN 2878, Part 2, Dealer Re-Assignment and Warranty of Title. The vehicle line shows a 2008 Ford Escape XLT with its vehicle identification number and title number. The buyer block names Tobias R. Lundeen of 716 12th Ave NE, Jamestown, North Dakota 58401, Stutsman County. The co-buyer block is shaded grey. The Or box is ticked, with a date of sale of 09/04/2026 and a selling price of 7,495.00. The dealer block names Sheyenne Valley Motors with dealer license number ND 04127, signed by authorized agent Curtis Odegaard with his hand-printed name and telephone number. — Shown filled in so you can recognise it, not so you can complete it - every amber entry here is the dealership's. The vehicle is a 2008 because this form bars itself from odometer-required vehicles, which in North Dakota means model year 2011 and newer. The co-buyer block is grey because a single retail buyer took the car. The dealership, its licence number, the buyer and the amounts are all fictional.

Field by field

Every line, in the order you meet it

1
Dealers only
The vehicle line
Year, make, model, vehicle identification number and title number, carried down from the certificate the dealership received.
Watch out: For a buyer reading a completed Part 2: check these five against the certificate's face before anything else. A re-assignment describing a different vehicle is not a clerical slip.
2
Dealers only
Buyer Information
The retail buyer's legal name or firm name, identifier, telephone and full address including county.
Watch out: The dealership writes this, exactly as a private seller writes the buyer into Part 1. Check your own name and address before you leave the desk.
3
Dealers only
Co-Buyer Information
A second buyer's name, identifier, telephone and their own complete address block.
Watch out: Left empty for a single buyer. Two names here with no conjunction ticked below is the same fault it is on Part 1, and it stops the new certificate being printed.
4
Dealers only
Check one, Date of Sale and Selling Price
The conjunction between two owners, the date the sale happened, and the price - which the form labels Required.
Watch out: The price on a dealer's re-assignment is the tax base for the buyer's application in the same way a private seller's is. It is not a negotiable entry.
5
Dealers only
Name of Dealer and Dealer License Number
The dealership's name and its North Dakota dealer licence number.
Watch out: This is the field that makes Part 2 a dealer's document. If somebody without a licence number is proposing to sign this form, the transaction is not what it is being described as.
6
Dealers only
Signature of Authorized Agent
The individual signing on the dealership's behalf, with the date.
Watch out: No notary, despite what the PDF's own field naming suggests - the department asks for a signature, a printed name and a telephone number, nothing more.
7
Dealers only
Hand-Printed Name of Authorized Agent
The same person's name printed legibly, with a daytime telephone number beside it.
Watch out: For a buyer: this is the person to ring if the title does not arrive. It is the only named human being on the form.

At a glance

What goes where

On the form	What to put in it
Vehicle Information	Year, make, model, vehicle identification number and title number, in the same row order as Part 1.
Buyer Information	The retail buyer's legal name or firm name, a driver's licence or FEIN, telephone number, and a full mailing address with city, state, ZIP and county.
Co-Buyer Information	A second buyer's name, identifier, telephone and a complete address of their own - which is where this form differs from Part 1, whose co-buyer shares the buyer's address.
Check one	Or, And, or And/Joint Tenants with Right of Survivorship, the same three-way choice the certificate carries.
Date of Sale and Selling Price (Required)	The two figures, with Required printed in the price label.
Name of Dealer and Dealer License Number	The two entries that make this a dealer's form. There is no version of them a private person can complete.
Signature of Authorized Agent, with a date	The individual at the dealership signing on the business's behalf.
Hand-Printed Name of Authorized Agent, and a daytime telephone number	The department wants the agent's name legibly printed as well as signed.
The header	To be completed by the seller and delivered to the buyer within 15 days of date of sale - the shorter of the two deadlines North Dakota publishes, and the one the certificate of title itself prints.
The two notes	It cannot be used to replace the application for certificate of title and registration, and it cannot be used for odometer required vehicles, which need the department's secure reassignment and odometer disclosure instead.

What gets this one rejected

•A private seller signing it. There is no lawful way to complete Name of Dealer and Dealer License Number without being a licensed dealer, and an assignment made on the wrong part of the certificate is not an assignment.
•Using it on a vehicle that needs an odometer disclosure. The second note bars it, and North Dakota's disclosure runs on model year 2011 and newer - which is most of what a dealer sells.
•Treating it as the buyer's application. The first note says it cannot replace the application for certificate of title and registration; Part 3 and the application are separate documents.
•A selling price left blank. The label carries Required, exactly as Part 1 does, because the buyer's excise tax is computed from it.
•A signature with no hand-printed name. The form asks for both, and an illegible signature alone leaves the department without a person to attach to the dealership.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

•The signature field is misleadingly named in the PDF, and there is no notary here. The underlying field the department named for its signature block reads like a notary line, but nothing on Part 2 is notarised. It takes an authorized agent's signature, their hand-printed name, a date and a telephone number, and that is all.
•Its co-buyer block is fuller than Part 1's. The loose Part 1 gives a co-buyer a name and a telephone number and lets them share the buyer's address. Part 2 gives them a complete address block of their own - as does the Part 1 printed on the certificate itself, which is worth knowing when comparing a dealer's paperwork against a private assignment.
•Fifteen days, printed at the top. Part 2's header uses the fifteen-day figure that the certificate of title carries, while the loose Part 1 prints thirty. Both are the department's own forms, published in the same revision month.
•A dealer re-assignment is a chain, not a substitute. Part 2 records the vehicle passing from a dealer to its retail buyer on a certificate somebody else originally assigned. The original owner's Part 1 stays exactly where it was.

Every line here was read off SFN 2878 (4-2026) itself — the PDF is here — and off the North Dakota Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division 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 North Dakota seller paperwork, or what selling a car in North Dakota involves.

How to fill out North Dakota SFN 2878

What a completed one looks like

Every line, in the order you meet it

The vehicle line

Buyer Information

Co-Buyer Information

Check one, Date of Sale and Selling Price

Name of Dealer and Dealer License Number

Signature of Authorized Agent

Hand-Printed Name of Authorized Agent

What goes where

What gets this one rejected

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

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