What happens when your loan is sold. A lender that assigns its security agreement to another institution files this so the department reissues the certificate showing the new lienholder - and for a seller it explains why the name on the title is a bank you have never dealt with.
Written against MV-950 (3-25), issued under 75 Pa.C.S. 1134.
If the lienholder printed on your certificate is not the institution you have been paying, this form is why. Get the satisfaction from whoever holds the loan now, because they are the ones PennDOT's record will accept a release from.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank MV-950 from the pa.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
This is all 2 pages of the actual MV-950, rendered from the PDF the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation 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
Page 1 of 2. The MV-950 itself, completed by the lender assigning the loan.Page 2 of 2. Page 2 is a different form: the MV-950A, Notification of Assignment of Secured Interest in a Vehicle to a Dealer. Same blocks, different destination.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
The lienholder fills this in
Vehicle information
Title number and VIN, and the certificate itself attached unless the lien is held electronically.
Watch out: The title travels with this form. A seller waiting on a certificate while an assignment is in progress is waiting on Harrisburg, not on their own lender.
2
You fill this in
Debtor
The vehicle owner's name and any co-owner's, exactly as they appear on the face of the title.
Watch out: This is the only line on the form about you, and you do not write it. Check it if you ever see the form - a wrong name here attaches the new lien to the wrong record.
3
The lienholder fills this in
Assignee of security interest
Name of the institution taking over, whether they are an electronic participant, their Financial Institution Number and their full address.
Watch out: The Financial Institution Number is what decides whether the reissued title arrives as paper or as an electronic record - and that decides how your eventual sale works.
4
The lienholder fills this in
The dates
Date of the original lien and date the lien was transferred, plus a contact telephone number for the assignee.
Watch out: The original lien date is carried forward, so an assignment does not restart the six-year life of the lien.
5
The lienholder fills this in
The unsworn declaration
Printed name, signature and job title of the authorised signer, with the county and country of signing.
Watch out: Signed by a person the original lienholder designated. It is an unsworn falsification declaration under 18 Pa.C.S. 4904 carrying a fine of at least $1,000.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
Vehicle information
Title number and vehicle identification number.
Debtor
The vehicle owner or owners whose names appear on the face of the title. That is you, described in the language of a security agreement.
Assignee of security interest
The institution taking over: name, whether they are an electronic lien and title participant, their Financial Institution Number, street address, city, state and ZIP.
The dates
Date of the original lien, date the lien was transferred, and the assignee's telephone number.
The assignment sentence
A printed certification that the assignor, for valuable consideration, has sold, assigned and transferred to the named assignee all of its right, title and interest in the security agreement, and asks PennDOT to file the assignment and issue a new certificate.
Unsworn declaration
The printed name, signature and job title of the applicant or authorised signer, with a telephone number and the day, month, year, county and country of signing.
What gets this one rejected
•Releasing the lien first. The instruction is explicit: the lien listed on the front of the title must not be released by the original lienholder.
•Sending it without the certificate, unless the title is an electronic record.
•Somebody unauthorised signing as assignor. It must be a person designated by the lienholder shown on the front of the attached certificate or on the vehicle record.
•Cash in the envelope. The form says do not send cash, and requires a cheque or money order payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•Whose form it is. The outgoing lender's. A vehicle owner never files this - the only reason it matters to a seller is that it is the mechanism by which the name on their title changes without them being told.
•It costs money. The form states plainly that it requires a fee, and points at the departmental schedule for the figure rather than printing one.
•Where it goes. To the Bureau of Motor Vehicles at Harrisburg, PA 17122 - a different address from the lien and duplicate-title work, which goes to a numbered post office box.
Every line here was read off MV-950 (3-25) itself —
the PDF is here — and off the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation pages.
This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ,
theirs governs.
