How to fill out Vermont VT-017

One application does two opposite jobs, and a tick box near the middle of the page decides which. Salvaged takes a wrecked car out of service and prints a salvage certificate in the applicant's name alone. Rebuilt puts a repaired one back on the road, and the certificate that comes out carries the legend REBUILT for the rest of the vehicle's life. Between those two ticks sits the part that governs a sale: the damage description, the list of damaged components and up to nine national brand codes, all of which are printed or recorded against a car you will one day be trying to sell.

Written against VT-017 (05/26), issued under 23 V.S.A. s. 2091 for the salvage certificate and its fifteen-day deadline, s. 2092 for issuance, and s. 2093(a) for the inspection and the REBUILT legend; affirmed under penalties of 23 V.S.A. s. 202 and s. 203. Selling a rebuilt car is a disclosure problem long before it is a paperwork problem. The legend on the certificate does part of the work, and s. 2093(b) requires the rest of it in your own voice, before the sale, both spoken and written down.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank VT-017 from the dmv.vermont.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our VT-017 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.

Step 1 · the form itself Blank VT-017 — Rebuilt/Salvage Title Application PDF at dmv.vermont.gov · new tab Step 2 · how to fill it in Our filled-in VT-017 guide PDF · print and keep beside you

Filled in

What a completed one looks like

This is the actual VT-017, rendered from the PDF the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, Agency 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

Rendered from the department's own PDF and completed for a car that came back from a collision. The two signature rows carry the department's own X marks and are left as they print, because they are signed in ink at the point the application is posted. Nobody in this sample exists, the insurer is invented and no vehicle matches this identification number.

Field by field

Every line, in the order you meet it

1
You fill this in
Decide which document you are asking for
Salvaged, or Rebuilt. One tick, near the middle of the page, and it changes what everything else means.
Watch out: Salvage takes the car off the road and prints a certificate in your name alone. Rebuilt puts it back on and prints a certificate carrying the legend REBUILT to every future owner.
2
You fill this in
Name of Title Applicant and Co-Owner's Name
Who the new document is issued to.
Watch out: On a salvage application there is no co-owner. The note at the foot of the page says the salvage title is issued in the applicant's name only, and it means it.
3
You fill this in
Owner/Co-Owner Relationship
One of the five Vermont legends, ticked, where two names are going onto the certificate.
Watch out: This is where a rebuilt car acquires the survivorship rule it will be sold under years later. It is worth thirty seconds of thought rather than a tick in the first box.
4
You fill this in
Vehicle description and identification number
Make, model, year, body style and seventeen characters.
Watch out: On a rebuilt car the department's representative reads the number off the vehicle. A transcription error here is found at the inspection, in person, with the car on a lift.
5
You fill this in
Public VIN Plate Is: ATTACHED, REMOVED or ALTERED
Three ticks, and the instruction on the back explains the consequence of the last two.
Watch out: A removed plate means a VT-003 travels with this application and a number gets assigned before any title can issue. Answer honestly; the inspection will find it anyway.
6
You fill this in
Odometer reading and its certification
Whole numbers, one unit tick, and one of the three mileage certifications.
Watch out: Where the instrument cluster was destroyed, the instructions accept a signed statement that the vehicle is not so equipped, provided it names the year, make and identification number.
7
You fill this in
Describe Damage And List Damaged Components
The free-text panel, and the part of the form a future buyer's inspector will read.
Watch out: Write what was hit and what was replaced. A panel reading "front end" tells nobody anything and invites the question you least want asked at a sale.
8
You fill this in
Title Brands
Numbers only, up to nine, taken from the NMVTIS table printed on the back of the form.
Watch out: Codes are not descriptions. 09 is rebuilt, 11 is salvage, 14 is collision, 51 is disclosed damage - and whatever goes here follows the vehicle through the national database for good.
9
You fill this in
Disposition of Vehicle Use
One of six outcomes ticked, with an explanation box for anything that does not fit.
Watch out: Rebuilt for Use on Public Roads is the tick that commits the car to an inspection under s. 2093(a) before a title or registration can be issued. There is no way round that step and no fee that replaces it.

At a glance

What goes where

On the form	What to put in it
Name of Title Applicant, Co-Owner's Name	Two name boxes at the top. Read the note at the foot of page one before filling in the second: a salvage title is issued in the applicant's name only, while a rebuilt title is issued to the owners listed on the front of this application.
Mailing Address, City/Town, State, Zip - twice	One address block for each name. They can differ.
Phone, email	Two contact boxes. The department uses them when the inspection has to be arranged.
Owner/Co-Owner Relationship (Check One): Joint Tenants, Tenants in Common, Partners (Business), Tenants by the Entirety, Transfer on Death (Vehicles Only)	The five ownership legends, on the same form that will print one of them onto the new certificate. Transfer on death here needs a separate VT-007 and only works where there is one owner.
Make, Model, Model Year, Body/Hull Style, Vessel Length, Trailer Length and Width	The description block, with vessel and trailer boxes a car leaves alone.
Vehicle/Vessel/ATV/Snowmobile Identification Number	One wide box. On a rebuilt car this is the number the department's representative will verify against the vehicle itself.
Public VIN Plate Is (Check One): ATTACHED, REMOVED, ALTERED	Three ticks with real consequences. The instructions send a removed plate to a separate form - a completed VT-003 must accompany this application, and a VIN must be assigned before the vehicle can be titled at all.
Empty Weight, # of Axles, Fuel Type, # of Cylinders, State Titled	Five technical boxes off the previous certificate or the door jamb.
Salvaged Or Rebuilt?	The tick that decides which of the two documents this application is. Everything else on the sheet reads differently depending on it.
Current Odometer Reading (No Tenths), with Miles, Kilometers or Hours, and The Mileage Shown Is: Actual Mileage / Not Actual Mileage / Mileage Exceeds Its Mechanical Limits	The reading and its certification. The instructions carry an exception a wrecked car often needs: a signed statement that the vehicle is not so equipped is accepted, provided it references the year, make and identification number.
Describe Damage And List Damaged Components	A deep free-text panel, and the substance of the form. The instruction is to describe the damage and list the damaged components, using additional pages where needed.
Title Brands (enter numbers only, see back), max of 9	Up to nine codes from the NMVTIS table printed on the back - 01 flood damage, 02 fire damage, 09 rebuilt, 11 salvage, 14 collision, 51 disclosed damage and the rest.
Name & Address of FIRST Lienholder (If None, So State), Date of 1st Lien, If Individual Enter DOB	The lien block, with the department's usual instruction: if there is none, write that there is none rather than leaving it empty.
Name & Address of SECOND Lienholder, Date of 2nd Lien	A second lien block. Vermont prints no more than two lienholders on a certificate.
Vehicle Acquired From (Name And Address), Date Acquired	Where the wreck came from and when. On a car bought at a salvage auction or from an insurer, this is the paper trail.
Disposition of Vehicle Use - The Vehicle Will Be: Crushed, Dismantled, Used for Parts Only, Sold at Auction as Salvage, Rebuilt for Use on Public Roads, Other - Explain	Six outcomes and one tick. This is the department's record of what happens next, and picking Rebuilt for Use on Public Roads is what commits you to the inspection.
Signature of Owner, Date Signed, Signature of Co-Owner, Date Signed	Two signature rows, each marked with an X. The instructions allow an authorised agent to sign in the owner's place.

What gets this one rejected

•An incomplete sheet. The instruction at the top of page two is that the application will be returned if not completed in full and submitted with all required supporting documentation.
•A rebuilt car presented for a title before the inspection. Section 2093(a) forbids the Commissioner from issuing a title or registration until the vehicle has been inspected, with verification of the identification number and of bills of sale or titles for the major component parts used to rebuild it.
•A removed public VIN plate with no VT-003 behind it. The instructions require the assignment application to travel with this one, and a number to be assigned before any title can issue.
•A co-owner named on a salvage application. The salvage certificate is issued in the applicant's name only, and the previous owner's name is not recorded on it either.
•More than nine title brands. The box says max of 9 and the codes come from the table on the back, not from a description in words.
•An application filed late. Section 2091(a) gives fifteen days from the day the vehicle is acquired as salvage, scrapped, dismantled, destroyed or declared a total loss.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

•Vermont's fifteen-year line reaches into salvage law too. The currently effective text of s. 2091(a) excepts vehicles for which no certificate of title is required under s. 2012 and vehicles that are more than fifteen years old. A second version of the same subsection, waiting on a contingency, drops the second limb.
•The disclosure duty is not created by this form and is not discharged by it. Section 2093(b) makes a seller disclose a salvaged, rebuilt or totalled vehicle orally and in writing before the sale, and conspicuously on the bill of sale as well as on the certificate. VT-005 has tick boxes and a purchaser's signature line for exactly that.
•The remedy for not disclosing is the whole price. Under s. 2093(c) the buyer may require a refund of the purchase price including taxes, licence fees and similar governmental charges. It is the buyer's option, not the seller's.
•A crushed car goes back to Montpelier as paper. Section 2091(d): the person causing the destruction mails or delivers the certificate endorsed "crushed" and signed, with the original plate showing the vehicle identification number, and that plate is not removed until the vehicle is crushed.
•No salvage fee is published. The department's title fee schedule prices a new, replacement or corrected certificate of title for a car, and lists no salvage line at all; this form names no figure of its own. Ask before you post the application rather than guessing at it.

Every line here was read off VT-017 (05/26) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, Agency 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.

Back to all Vermont seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Vermont involves.

How to fill out Vermont VT-017

What a completed one looks like

Every line, in the order you meet it

Decide which document you are asking for

Name of Title Applicant and Co-Owner's Name

Owner/Co-Owner Relationship

Vehicle description and identification number

Public VIN Plate Is: ATTACHED, REMOVED or ALTERED

Odometer reading and its certification

Describe Damage And List Damaged Components

Title Brands

Disposition of Vehicle Use

What goes where

What gets this one rejected

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

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