How to fill out South Dakota Form 1024

This is the one South Dakota form with a statute behind it that gives you no days at all. SDCL 32-5-2.10 reads: at the time of sale of a vehicle, the seller shall file a report of sale with the department indicating the purchaser's name and address, and failure to file such a report is a Class 2 misdemeanor. Form 1024 is the paper way to do it; the tear-off strip at the foot of a recently issued certificate and the state's own vehicle portal are the other two. Its instruction block ends with a line worth reading twice - do not give this form to the buyer. The report is your notice, filed by you, kept by you.

Written against Form 1024 (no revision printed), issued under South Dakota Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division, filed with the county treasurer under SDCL 32-5-2.10. Do not treat this as a release of liability in the sense other states use the phrase. South Dakota's report of sale is a notification and nothing more - the department says so in the manual, and the title record keeps your name on it until a county treasurer processes the buyer's application. The protection that actually works is the combination: file the report the day of the sale, take the plates off so no registration of yours is on the car, and keep your photograph of the completed assignment. If day forty-six arrives and the buyer still has not applied, SDCL 32-3-27 lets you file a written complaint that turns their delay into a Class 2 misdemeanor.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank Form 1024 from the sddor.seamlessdocs.com copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our Form 1024 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.

Step 1 · the form itself Blank Form 1024 — Seller's Report of Sale PDF at sddor.seamlessdocs.com · new tab Step 2 · how to fill it in Our filled-in Form 1024 guide PDF · print and keep beside you

Filled in

What a completed one looks like

This is the actual Form 1024, rendered from the PDF the South Dakota Department of Revenue, 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 South Dakota Seller's Report of Sale, Form 1024, for a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox LT. The vehicle block carries the year, make, model, vehicle identification number and South Dakota title number. The sale block shows a date of sale of 08/19/2026 and a selling price of $9,150.00, with the seller named as Marlene D. Tschetter of Brookings, South Dakota. The purchaser block names Orval J. Bjornson of Watertown, South Dakota, with his South Dakota driver's licence number. The seller's signature and date lines at the foot are left blank. — Rendered from the department's own form and completed the way a private sale completes it. The signature line at the foot carries no field in the department's markup, so it is left for pen rather than filled at a guessed coordinate - every other value here sits inside a rectangle the department itself declared.

Field by field

Every line, in the order you meet it

1
You fill this in
The vehicle, from the certificate
Year, make, model, VIN or HIN and the South Dakota title number, copied off the face of the title rather than off the advert.
Watch out: The title number is the part people leave blank. It is what lets the department attach your report to the right record before the buyer's application exists.
2
You fill this in
Date of sale and selling price
The date must match the one you wrote into the assignment on the reverse of the title, and the price must match the bill of sale you handed over.
Watch out: Two different dates on two documents is the fastest way to a phone call from a county treasurer, and the sale date is what the buyer's forty-five days and your forty-five days both run from.
3
You fill this in
Your name and address
The seller block, as the record owner. This is the department's contact route if something surfaces about the car later.
Watch out: Use the address the department can reach you at after you move on from the car, not the one printed on a title issued years ago.
4
You fill this in
The buyer's name and full address
The statute requires the report to indicate the purchaser's name and address, so this block is the whole point of the filing.
Watch out: Take it off their driver's licence while they are standing there. Reconstructing a buyer's address from a text message a week later is how these get filed wrong.
5
You fill this in
The buyer's licence number or SSN
One identifier, so the department can match your notice to their title application when it reaches a county counter.
Watch out: A South Dakota licence number is the normal entry. A buyer from out of state supplies a social security number instead, which is the same identifier their title application will carry.

At a glance

What goes where

On the form	What to put in it
Year, Make, Model	The top row of the vehicle block. Three boxes, taken from the face of the certificate rather than from memory.
VIN/HIN	Seventeen characters for a car; the hull identification number if the thing you sold floats. This form covers boats as well as vehicles.
Title Number	The South Dakota title number printed on the face of the certificate - what ties your report to the right record when the department looks for it.
Date of Sale	The same date you wrote into the assignment on the reverse. This is the date the statute's phrase at the time of sale is measured against.
Selling Price	What the buyer actually paid. The department reads it beside the excise tax the county eventually collects, so a figure that disagrees with your bill of sale invites a question.
Seller's Name, Address, City, State, Zip Code	You, as the record owner. The address matters because this is the notice the department has if it needs to reach you about the car after it has gone.
Purchaser's Name, Address, City, State, Zip Code	The buyer's details in full. The statute names exactly two things the report must contain - the purchaser's name and address - so this block is the substance of the filing.
Purchaser's SD Driver's License # or SSN	One identifier for the buyer. It is what lets the department match your report to the title application when it finally arrives at a county counter.
Seller's Signature, Date	Above the certification that you have sold or transferred the vehicle described herein and have assigned and delivered the certificate of title to the buyer or transferee, thereby releasing interest in this vehicle.

What gets this one rejected

•Giving it to the buyer. The instruction is printed on the form in the department's own words, and a report of sale that leaves with the car has not been filed by anyone.
•Filing it and assuming the car is off your record. The Procedures Manual is explicit that the report serves only as notification of a sale and does not cause any action to be taken against the title or registration record - the record changes when your buyer applies.
•A purchaser block with no address, or a town instead of one. Name and address are the two things SDCL 32-5-2.10 requires the report to indicate, so an incomplete one is not a filing.
•Sending it to Pierre instead of the courthouse. The form directs you to file the new purchaser information with your local county treasurer.
•Waiting until the buyer has titled the car. By then the notice has done nothing for you, and the offence it exists to avoid was complete on the day of the sale.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

•Three routes satisfy the same statute. The manual lists them: the tear-off form attached to the bottom of a new certificate of title, which the seller completes and forwards to the county treasurer; a report of sale completed online at the state's vehicle portal; or this form. A dealer sale creates a pending title record instead, which replaces any need for a report of sale form.
•Keep it until the day you sell. The form's first line is written for the seller's filing cabinet - for your protection, keep this notice until the vehicle is sold or transferred. It is issued to be held, then filed.
•What it protects, in the department's own hedge. This may protect you from liabilities resulting from driving or movement of the vehicle/boat after the date of the sale. May, not will, and only from that class of liability.
•Owners should keep a copy. Printed on the form itself: owners should keep a copy of this notice for their records as proof of the transfer. Photograph the completed assignment on the back of the title at the same time.
•It covers boats too. The vehicle block asks for a VIN or HIN and the certification says vehicle/boat throughout. South Dakota titles boats over twelve feet and all motorised boats, and the same report applies when one is sold.

Every line here was read off Form 1024 (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.

How to fill out South Dakota Form 1024

What a completed one looks like

Every line, in the order you meet it

The vehicle, from the certificate

Date of sale and selling price

Your name and address

The buyer's name and full address

The buyer's licence number or SSN

What goes where

What gets this one rejected

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

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