How to fill out South Dakota Form 1020

Hail is a South Dakota industry, and this is the form that decides whether a hail-written car can be sold at all. The instruction at the head sets out the duty that catches owners rather than insurers: if the owner retains possession of the vehicle, the owner shall prior to sale or transfer of the title obtain a salvage title, and failure to do so is a Class 1 misdemeanor. That applies where an insurer or self-insurer declared the vehicle a total loss but the owner kept it - the common outcome when a payout is taken and the car stays in the yard. The statement itself is short: two yes-or-no questions and a declaration.

Written against Form 1020 (no revision printed), issued under South Dakota Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division, under SDCL 32-3-51.19 to 32-3-51.22. The trap is the payout you kept. A South Dakota owner who takes an insurance settlement on a hail-damaged or flooded car and keeps the vehicle has acquired a duty, not just a cheque - the salvage title has to be obtained before the car is sold or the title transferred, and the offence is complete at the sale. It is also worth knowing what the branding does to the car afterwards: once a South Dakota title carries a salvage brand, getting back to a road-legal title runs through the rebuilt-vehicle inspection on Form 1016, and a vehicle more than ten model years old cannot be salvage-titled at all, which changes the conversation rather than ending it.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank Form 1020 from the sddor.seamlessdocs.com copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our Form 1020 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.

Every line, in the order you meet it

1. 1
   You fill this in

   The vehicle, and where its title came from

   Year, make, model, VIN, title number and the state that issued the title.

   Watch out: The title state is not decoration. A brand carried on another state's certificate is transferred onto the South Dakota one in the previous state field.

2. 2
   You fill this in

   Was it determined to be a total loss?

   Yes, No or N/A, against the printed definition covering fire, vandalism, collision, weather and submersion in water or flood.

   Watch out: The question is about what the insurer determined, not about what you think of the damage. A settlement letter calling it a total loss answers it.

3. 3
   You fill this in

   The recovered theft question

   Whether a South Dakota salvage-titled vehicle has been recovered and determined not to be salvage.

   Watch out: For most sellers this is N/A. It exists for the narrow case where a stolen car came back undamaged and the salvage brand has to come off the record.

4. 4
   You fill this in

   The declaration, date and place

   Day, month, place of signing, then printed names and signatures. Two pairs, for a jointly titled vehicle.

   Watch out: No notary is needed. What is needed is that this reaches the county treasurer before the car does, because the salvage title has to exist before the sale.

What gets this one rejected

• •Selling first and disclosing afterwards. The duty runs the other way - the owner obtains the salvage title prior to sale or transfer, and doing it in the wrong order is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
• •Ticking No on a car an insurer wrote off. Weather damage is named in the printed definition, which is why hail is the commonest South Dakota trigger for this form.
• •Leaving the title state blank on an out-of-state certificate. Out-of-state title brands are displayed on all South Dakota titles in the previous state field, and the department needs to know where the record came from.
• •Ticking the recovered-theft box on a vehicle that was never salvage-titled. That statement is about a South Dakota salvage-titled vehicle being brought back to an unbranded status, not about any recovered car.
• •An insurance company trying to reassign a South Dakota title instead. The manual is explicit that South Dakota titles cannot be reassigned by an insurance company.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •Age and weight decide whether a salvage title is even possible. The form's instruction: salvage titles are required on motor vehicles less than 11 years old and vehicles that weigh less than 16,000 GVWR. Older or heavier than that and the vehicle does not qualify for one.
• •The insurer has thirty days when it takes the car. Where an insurer or self-insurer acquires ownership in settlement of a total loss claim, it must within thirty days of acquisition surrender the title and apply for a salvage title.
• •And has to warn you when it does not. The manual requires the insurer or self-insurer to notify the owner in writing of the obligation to obtain a salvage title before the owner sells or transfers the title.
• •Some vehicles cannot be salvage-titled at all. The manual's exclusion list is specific: all-terrain and other off-road vehicles, off-road dirt bikes, golf carts, dune buggies, Humvees and boats.
• •No notary. Like most of the department's library, it ends in an unsworn declaration under penalty of perjury rather than an acknowledgement.

Every line here was read off Form 1020 (no revision printed) itself — the PDF is here — and off the South Dakota Department of Revenue, 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 South Dakota seller paperwork, or what selling a car in South Dakota involves.